I am sorry that is not a point of order. Please sit down. Please proceed, Minister.
The MINISTER OF HIGHER EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: Hon Chair,
as a department, we aim to ensure that within the next 10 years there is no district municipality in this country that will not have access to a post- school education and training institution of one type or the other. This decision is also informed by the President's own commitment to a national spatial development strategy, which is based on systematic, investment and development in each of our 44 districts and eight metropolitan municipalities.
This, in my view, would be a major development in the struggle to overcome the spatial legacies of underdevelopment inherited from the apartheid. It will also open and broaden access to children of the poor and the working- class to have a better chance than their parents to break the cycle of poverty and deprivation in their families.
As I pointed out during our budget appropriation last week, the Technical and Vocational Education and Training, TVET, college sector has made enormous strides with nine new campus sites under construction and scheduled for completion in 2020. They include Sterkspruit, Aliwal North, Graaff Reneit, Ngungqushe, Umzimkhulu, Greytown, Msinga, Nongoma and Kwagqikazi. Contracts will be awarded to a further four campus sites in the year 2019-20. The sites include Balfour, Giyani, Nkandla B and Vryheid.
Construction will also commence with a new campus site for Mitchells Plain in 2020. Through the National Immovable Maintenance Standard, we have allocated R1 billion from 2018-19 to 2021-22 financial years to roll out a college infrastructure efficiency grant for maintenance in all 50 TVET colleges. Over the period 2018-19 to 2020-21, we have also strengthened our investment in infrastructure projects across our 26 universities by investing a total of
R11,65 billion. While all universities benefit from this investment, there is a focus and bias towards historically disadvantaged institutions that had been under-resourced in the past.
Chairperson, we have established a ministerial task team on the Fourth Industrial Revolution to provide critical policy advice and interventions required to align and effectively participate and, I dare say, to also innovate for this revolution. Our goal is also to help reposition our country to not just being consumer of knowledge, but also to be a producer of knowledge and new innovation. We cannot aim for less than this!
The outputs from the ministerial task team will constitute a crucial input into both the work of the Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, as well as into the work of the interministerial committee, IMC, on the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As this work is underway, as a department we are already developing a skills-master plan in response to the known skills demands associated with this revolution. This plan will be complemented by a national list of occupations in high demand and the critical skills list so that this informs career development services, resource allocation and enrolment planning to meet the needs of our country.
Hon Chair and members, we are investing more effort and more resources into TVET and Community Education and Training, CET, colleges, which have the potential to produce technical skills to drive our industrialisation project. On the 12th April 2019 this year, we published a draft policy on the new national norms and standards for funding CET colleges, so we can strengthen the role of colleges in the provision of skills, education and training for out of school youth and adults.
In the year 2020, we will be implementing a new Sector Education and Training Authority, Seta, landscape to further respond to the skill demands of our economy. We will ensure that we strengthen, realign and repurpose Setas so that they respond to the skills needs of our economy. Having said that, artisan skills development remains a top priority whilst rapidly expand workplace-based learning through learnerships, work integrated learning and internships.
Through a programme on centres of specialisation, Cos, we have committed ourselves to train 780 youth in artisan skills. These centres will further assist 26 TVET college campuses to improve their capacity to develop artisans with industry partners in 13 priority trades comprising, amongst others, skill sets in bricklaying, electrician, millwright, boilermakers and automotive
mechanics. The targeted TVET colleges are expected to play a major role in this process by focusing on the development of artisans required for large- scale projects such as Strategic Integrated Projects, Operation Phakisa, War on Leaks and other strategic interventions aimed at increasing the economic activity of the country. We do want to say Chairperson and hon members, we appreciate the role commitment by some employers in taking on inexperienced young people into their employment so that they can get work- based experience.
To further encourage this government has introduced what we call the employment tax incentives, which incentivises the cost to employers who are hiring these young people. Through our TVET and CET colleges, we intend to offer a curriculum that will respond to the direct needs of communities.
We urge hon members, especially in this House of Parliament to come closer to our colleges, to visit them, to assist them and refocusing their efforts towards responding effectively to the community, local and provincial skills need. These colleges we are building them so that they respond precisely to those needs of the areas in which they are located in the main.
We will further heighten our collaboration with relevant industries in provinces to ensure that our institutions respond to the skills requirements of provinces and municipalities. An essential part of this strategy, of course, is aimed at to bridging the divide between the process of training and employment, and between the classroom and the workplace. The NCOP in particular also has a crucial role to play in ensuring that our municipalities and our provincial government departments become places for training and work exposure to young people through internships and learnerships.
We are also going to be strengthening our Adopt-a-TVET college campaign by companies to promote co-operation between industry and TVET colleges. We have already entered into service level agreements with a number of major industry partners and associations specialising in identified trades and occupations in these 26 targeted TVET colleges.
In the same vein, the National Skills Fund has also made available R150 million to upgrade workshops at TVET colleges to meet industry requirements. It is our vision that beyond 2030, we must have no tuition fees for the poor in all of our community colleges in each of the 52 identified municipalities. [Applause.] Ideally, each of the 226 local municipalities in our country should have its own
learning centre in the long term and by 2030, 27 of these colleges will be operational.
IsiZulu:
Sihlalo okunye kufisa nje ngikuchaze ukuthi lamakolishi omphakathi sithathe lezindawo obekuthiwa izikhungo zemfundo yabadala ukuthi siziphendule ukuthi zingagcine nje ukufundisa a, e, I, o, u kuphela ngoba abantu bakithi abadala abadingi ukuziqhuba. Uzothola ukuthi kunomama owaphuma ebangeni le- 4 esikoleni akazimisele ngokuthi ayofunda ibanga lesi-5, into ayifunayo nje ufuna ukwazi ukubhaka noma ufuna ukwazi ukupheka noma ufuna ukwazi ukuthunga ukuze akwazi ukuzuphilisa.
Amakolishi ethu kufanele asebenze nalowo msebenzi wokuthi kungagcini nje ngokuthi a, e, i, o, u kodwa bakwazi futhi abantu bakithi uma kukhona ikhono abalifunayo bakwazi ukulithola eduze.
English:
We further intend to align our institutions to support economic development and growth through our innovation processes, our National System of Innovation and we are now even better placed to do that since the Department of Higher Education and Training and the Department of Science and Innovation have been now brought
together under one Ministry by the President. We will also scale up our Grassroots Innovation Programmes, GIP, to transform and ensure equitable access to the science, technology and innovation infrastructure for all innovators and also in order to support our townships and rural economies.
I have also reported that one of the things that we want to do,hon Chair, in this budget and our commitment is also to train more black and women South African academics into our universities. We believe that this is a very important component of transforming our institutions. We have a programme which we call the New Generation of Academics programme where we are actually recruiting blacks and women junior academics so that we are able to supply the numbers of academics that we need. For instance, we will be supporting this financial year 50 academic and professional staff at our universities to studies through the university capacity development programme.
IsiZulu:
Inkinga enkulu enye esihlala sisenayo ukuthi abantu bakithi abaningi abafundisa emanyuvesi abanazo iziqu zobudokotela. Ngokomthetho kufanele sibandise abantu abaneziqu zobudokotela abafundisa ezikhungeni zethu zemfundo ephakeme ikakhulukazi emanyuvesi.
English:
Our department has been given the role to better co-ordinate scholarships that are offered by the government. Some of the challenges we have, you find that national government, departments and provinces offer scholarships. Municipalities too offer scholarships but there isn't really proper co-ordination around whether these scholarships are making the kind of impact that we want to make.
One of our things that we want to do during this year is to focus on the fight against gender-based violence in our institutions of higher education. We also still remain committed to reach our NDP goal of 1,62 million university students by 2023. In order to achieve these goals, we also aim to increase online education, including offerings of university and college courses through after hours programmes. I am very passionate about this programme. I am prepared to actually drive it that we are able to have adults and workers accessing higher education after hours, by using the very same buildings that we have.
We also would like to urge, hon Chair, that [Interjections.] you should also work with us also to identify the many bogus colleges that are still there, which are offering our people false
qualifications. We call on law enforcement agencies to actually deal with this. I also want to say, hon Chair and hon member, we will continue to offer bursaries through National Student Financial Aid Scheme, NSFAS, to support students from families earning a gross annual income of up to R350 000 per annum assisting them with full tuition, learner support materials, subsidies with accommodation and living expenses, and transport costs where appropriate. The substantial investment in poor and working-class students over the 2019 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, amounts to R82 billion for university students and R20,4 billion for TVET college students. That's the ANC government. [Applause.] That's the ANC government. [Applause.]
Towards conclusion, we have also established a student housing infrastructure programme which aims to provide 300 000 beds for university over the next 10 years. [Interjections.] Our department's budget is unfortunately still dominated by university education which represents 82% of the budget. As we work towards the revision of all these things, we will be able to ensure that our budget is aligned to deal with our major priorities. It's a pity that the EFF, hon Chair, is trying to disturb me. You have a question to answer about the Ratanang trust and stop making the kinds of noise that you are making. Thank you very much. [Applause.]