During 2006 the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA), in support of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), produced two reports that identified the need for an additional 1000 engineers and technologists/technicians per annum over the next four years and 7500 additional artisans per annum over the next four years (including 2007).
In response to this, the NBI is facilitating a collaborative initiative called the Technical Skills Business Partnership (TSBP). The partnership comprises of the following partners:
- Sasol (Petrochemical industry)
- Arcelor Mittal (Manufacturing, steel and engineering industry)
- Transnet (State Owned Enterprise: Transportation)
- Eskom (State Owned Enterprise: Energy)
- Anglo Platinum, (Platinum industry)
- Gold Fields (Mining industry)
The main focus of the partnership is to develop gap-closing strategies and action plans to improve the participating companies’ and their sector contribution towards alleviating the shortage in engineering and artisan skills in line with the JIPSA targets.
Senior industry role players have agreed to implement actions and systems towards:
Shaping and improving the capability and capacity of South Africa to develop technical/engineering competence;
Ensuring timeous delivery of competence requirements in these skills areas;
Implementing sustainable competence development capability to meet current and future South African competency needs.
A Memorandum of Understanding which provides a framework has been signed. In August 2007, a steering committee was established as a mandated body to steer and guide the activities of the working committee.
Progress to date includes
Researching the historical and present contribution of member companies in the training of engineers, technologists, technicians and artisans;
Determining capacity in terms of facilities, equipment and training staff in order to understand the supply side better;
Analysing the South Africa’s labour scene and scarce categories;
Sharing best practices in the training pipeline (from recruitment through to certification and funding);
Setting a target to train 5 400 artisans, operators and miners over the next three years. The current 2009 economic reality has slowed the delivering of the promised numbers somewhat but the target of 900 per company remains intact;
Commitment was secured for the upfront funding and training of 2 900 artisans, operators and miners on an over and above basis towards the national pool. The necessary capacity exists and commitment has been given for training the remaining 2 500 people if additional funding can be secured.
Next steps
Implementation and monitoring of committed artisan, operator and miner training numbers from August 2008;
Influencing the national funding model and disbursement process to increase the availability of funds for training for the national pool;
Focusing on FET including college partnerships and curriculum reviews.