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27 March 2006

Cabinet Ministers,
Deputy Ministers,
Directors General,
Members of the JIPSA Joint task team,
Members of the JIPSA technical working group, Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

It is an immense pleasure and a privilege for me to be part of this significant day. This is the day on which we shift the gear lever and launch the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA).

Today JIPSA opens for business. The concrete step we are taking marks the culmination of an intense but exciting process which began when Cabinet unveiled the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) in July last year. JIPSA alongside other educational bodies, most of them represented here today are the most important building blocks for AsgiSA. If we fail in the human resource and skills development sphere, AsgiSA fails.
JIPSA has a narrow but important mandate which must begin to yield results within a relatively short space of time.

Nothing short of a skills revolution by a nation united will extricate us from the crisis we face. We are addressing logjams, some of which are systemic and therefore in some cases entrenched even in the post apartheid South Africa. The systemic nature of some of our challenges undermine our excellent new policies, at least in the short term, hence the need for interventions such as JIPSA to enhance implementation of our policies.

Only if we have a nation that is united in partnership can we reverse the trend with regard to skills and give our policies a chance to succeed in the medium to long term.

But what is this JIPSA?

South Africa is a country that is full of hope and good prospects. The opinion polls universally confirm this. So do the facts on the ground.

The growth of our economy which is now at more than four percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is proof of that. Yet both unemployment and poverty are still at unacceptably high levels, which mean our growth is not fairly shared. The most fatal constraint to shared growth is skills, and it should be noted that skills are not just one of the constraints facing AsgiSA but a potentially fatal constraint. That fact should be admitted with emphasis. We have to overcome the shortage of suitable skilled labour if our dreams for this economy are to be realised; the task is huge. And JIPSA is only one of the interventions which seek to address the skills challenges.

Our departments of Education, Labour, Science and Technology, Public Service and Administration (DPSA) and others, as well as Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs), private sector and organs of civil society all intervene at different levels.

With JIPSA we are only focusing on scarce and critical skills without which we cannot deliver on our AsgiSA commitments and targets. However, JIPSA must make a sustainable, not a superficial, intervention and relate with our universities, technikons and schools, which have a much broader mandate.

I need not remind this audience that skills are the backbone on which every successful economy relies. We have learnt that from economies such as Malaysia and Japan, and most recently we had interesting discussions with the Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland and Prime Minister of New Zealand which can only confirm this essential truth. In both countries, their economic revival and turn around had the Skills Revolution at the core.

Our support for skills development includes poorer schools and increased efforts to support maths, science and English language skills in schools. JIPSA will be focusing specifically on teachers of these subjects. Teachers are being regarded as a scarce and a priority skill.

JIPSA will support the alignment of Further Education and Training (FET) colleges and Higher Education institutions in their work of producing graduates that we can employ who meet the demand and needs of employers in the public and private sector.

JIPSA will therefore work with both higher education institutions and employers, all of whom are represented in JIPSA. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Education (DOE), Department of Labour (DOL), Department of Science and Technology (DST), the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) are our key training departments.

Those adults who are illiterate and poor, particularly, need to be actively drawn into the economy. JIPSA will indirectly support the Department of Education's work in Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET).

We also need a credible plan with targets and timeframes to train and supply artisans. FETs, the private sector and State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) are key to delivering artisanal training for the nation. Artisans are part of the range of priority and scarce skills.

From where I stand, I have no doubt that the Skills Revolution is the most important task on our shoulders at this point and to succeed we have to be partners and give our the subject all we have. I am appealing to you to put the education challenge above other important tasks you have for a couple of years until we achieve the desired shift, and can say we are on a safe and secure trajectory.

JIPSA should not duplicate any of the existing structures, but should lean on them. For the work of JIPSA we do not need new policies. So we have to proceed with speed as we change gear to maximise our effort in the chosen direction. In 18 months we must emerge with concrete benefits in alignment with the thrust of many who are here today, and indeed many others with whom we work as we proceed.

JIPSA Structure

JIPSA is a two-tiered structure comprising a joint task team and a technical working group. The joint task team, which I chair, comprises of 26 members who are leaders in business, labour, higher education and civil society, many of them here with us today.

The joint task team is to be:
(1) The engine for unblocking acquisition of targeted skills;
(2) It will oversee the work of JIPSA and ensure that it delivers on its mandate of acquiring scarce and priority skills in the shortest time possible;
(3) Build partnerships with different institutions;
(4) Ensure sustainability of the initiatives of JIPSA.

The technical working group is chaired by Mr Gwede Mantashe, and is made up of specialists and experts in areas ranging from research, all levels of education, labour, business and government.

The technical working group will identify blockages and seek solutions. It will ensure that systems and programmes are in place to attract the skills, and they will forward and recommend researched interventions for decisions by the task team. The joint task team will fast-track training and ensure that it maintains quality. Secondments and placements will be used extensively to enhance experience.

JIPSA will see to reliable data and engage with training institutions for curriculum relevance and use of under utilised training facilities, in the public and private sector. A secretariat provided by National Business Initiative (NBI) creates an opportunity for JIPSA to run uninterruptedly with fulltime personnel. We thank NBI and Business Trust for their contribution.

The Department of Home Affairs and the joint task team must look at facilitating the importation of scarce and priority skills to assist us to meet our short to medium term skills demand.

In addition to the obvious departments already mentioned, the other crucial department, especially for specific AsgiSA sectors, is the Department of Public Works (DPW), Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) also for infrastructure undertaken by SOEs. There is also involvement of the Department of Defence due to the array of training facilities and capabilities programmes they possess.

The Department of Foreign Affairs has an important contribution to make in sourcing and attracting scarce skills from the international community, including Africans in the Diaspora, to assist us to train our people in foreign academic institutions and for international placements when we train people through placements in foreign private companies and governments. South Africa is most sensitive to the brain drain, and the potential of the brain gain, in Africa.

JIPSA will also engage with business to meet its Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) obligations to skills development. All empowerment Charters have an obligation for skills development that need to be realised.

We will also look at organised labour to lead and demonstrate innovation in working together with government and business to enhance productivity and secure training for quality jobs. One must stress that, as with AsgiSA, JIPSA is not a government programme. It has to be a national agenda. All partners will have to assume meaningful responsibility.

What are the priority and scarce skills?

The immediate focus of JIPSA will be on the skills identified by AsgiSA. These include skills needed for infrastructure development in government, private sector and state owned enterprises, the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) and public service and social services delivery e.g. health and education.

Then there are the skills required in the sectors that we have prioritised such as tourism and Business Process Outsourcing (BPOs).

Both are in our short term plans and both need languages and information and communication technology (ICT) skills. Other sectors are agriculture, creative industries, mineral beneficiation, chemicals, forestry, and cross cutting skills such as finance. Our skills development must also benefit SMMEs within the sectors we have identified.

Beyond the urgent scarce skills, JIPSA will be sensitive to long term fundamentals for the supply of skills needed for sustained shared economic growth which benefits all our people.

Established educational institutions such as universities, FETs and schools, will always be the backbone for the training that JIPSA will need. Obviously JIPSA cannot succeed without standing on the shoulders of these core institutions.

In summary and based on the AsgiSA priorities, the following working areas for JIPSA have been identified:

* High level, world class engineering and planning skills for the 'network industries', transport, communications and energy all at the core of our infrastructure programme;
* City, urban and regional planning and engineering skills desperately needed by our municipalities;
* Artisan and technical skills, with priority attention to those needs for infrastructure development;
* Management and planning skills in education, health and in municipalities;
* Teacher training for mathematics, science, ICT and language competence in public education;
* Specific skills needed by the Priority AsgiSA, sectors starting with tourism and BPO and cross cutting skills needed by all sectors especially finance; project managers and managers in general;
* Skills relevant to local economic development needs of municipalities, especially developmental economists.

JIPSA will be a support measure for our people who are still locked within the Second Economy, so that they can also have a chance to participate in the First Economy and in the growing South African economy in general. Empowerment through education must be given a big boost in the work of JIPSA.

JIPSA must put in place a system to:

* Bring in volunteers, retirees and other people with the skills required and identified by JIPSA. DBSA is already playing a critical role of receiving Curriculum Vitae and even deploying to municipalities. Eskom is also recruiting scarce skills for its needs; this work is being consolidated. The work of NACI, HSRC, CSIR, DOL, SETAs, Department of Home Affairs have provided important data with regard to defining scarce and priority skills.

* The number of unemployed graduates has grown significantly in the past five years. JIPSA must seek ways of absorbing unemployed graduates into the economy whilst addressing the mismatch in relation to the type of training offered to these students as compared to skills needed by the job market. Retraining on the job and elsewhere will be part of what JIPSA must assist with to ensure their employment. That work has begun. Umsobomvu Youth Fund has also helped us to access unemployed graduates. Thanks to the support from the private sector, SOEs, government departments, especially the Department of Public Works, are taking the graduates.

* JIPSA will maintain a living database of skills needs in the economy, including providing an understanding of patterns, trends and key indicators of priority skills demand and supply. Various databases and research work exist, from sources such as Departments of Labour, Education and Public Service and Administration, industry bodies, our eminent research institutions such as HSRC, NACI and University research bodies, which are key sources.

* These databases are being collated for purposes of synthesis and confirmation of the nature of skills challenges in the priority areas. A team led by Professor Haroon Bhorat of the University of Cape Town is completing this work. Further, through the generous support of Standard Bank, Professor Haroon Bhorat's team is improving the database of unemployed graduates.

To date JIPSA is undertaking the following:
* In May 2006, training of 100 local government practitioners will commence in the field of Project Management, by Old Mutual in conjunction with SAMDI and DPLG. This will be a practical, hands-on course for practitioners, and we thank Old Mutual for this support.

* The Department of Public Works and The Presidency have co-ordinated a programme to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to secure suitable placement of women in infrastructure projects. Placement offers have also been secured in the Hospitality and Finance Sector. A total of 100 women and unemployed graduates are targeted. The process of matching available placements and candidates is underway and the DPW, DFA, IDT DBSA and women in construction have played a significant role in this regard.

Another 120 women and youth are soon to be placed with the Bombela Consortium to be part of the Gautrain Project. We were very pleased about the number of women with qualifications in the built environment who have responded to our recruitment for both UAE and Gautrain Projects.

An approach to give women and youth a head start has already been adopted, to ensure that growth is shared with these historically marginalised groups. This year we are celebrating the 50 years of struggle by women since that historic march to the Union Buildings to protest against the pass laws, and also this year marks the 30th Anniversary of the students' uprising which took place on 16 June 1976.

Therefore, the improvement of the lot of women and youth is uppermost in our minds. JIPSA's work will obviously be much wider than these designated groups. Certain skills will need people who are already trained and able to engage and perform at a higher level and take on supervisory and mentoring roles.

Conclusion

I want to express appreciation to my colleagues in Cabinet and their officials, the private sector and the role of NBI, Business Trust, Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), Chambers of Commerce and Industry South Africa (CHAMSA), labour, academics from institutions of higher learning and Science Councils, Umsobomvu Youth Fund and National Youth Commission, SETAs and other organs of civil society, especially women, for their support and commitment.

I have been told there is even an AsgiSA ecumenical reflection group.
Much more closer and systematic collaboration is needed and there is room for improvement in our co-ordination. We are eternally thankful to those social partners who have joined us and are collaborating with us.

As a country, South Africa has as yet not taken the matter of skills to a Skills Revolution level. To achieve that, we must be united as a nation in pursuit of this goal. It must be one of the indelible marks of the new, democratic order in which we all share.

Our quest to be a competitive economy and a winning nation depends on us equipping ourselves appropriately. Institutions mandated to advance the Skills and Human Resource Development course for the nation is the backbone of JIPSA.

It is important that, on this day, we commit ourselves to ensure the rapid growth of a shared economy which benefits many and not just a few.

I thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency
27 March 2006