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16 May 2008

The Gauteng province has beefed up its commitment of "a smart delivery" by launching a multimillion rand academy that will benefit the people of Gauteng.

The academy called Gauteng City Region Academy (GCRA) was recently held at the Sandton Convention and was graced by Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa, Education MEC, Angie Motshekga and Gauteng senior education managers.

Talented learners starting from grade nine will be identified for mentorship, career and life strategy. The academy will further run a co-ordinated province-wide bursary fund targeting 1 500 learners in 2008/09 financial year.

Higher education institutions, high schools and further education and training (FET) colleges will also be working with the academy to identify young talent.

Shilowa said the GCRA will not only benefit learners it will also play a vital role in creating skilled, competent managers and leaders capable of accelerating service delivery.

"The government is committed to build a corps of skilled public servants to drive the province's development and transformation agenda," said Motshekga. If we talk about managing and planning through an integrated and co-ordinated approach, then we need a skilled civil service corps," added Motshekga.

In addition to the launch of the academy the conference further explored various ways of responding to challenges of skills development and capacity of the state in the province.

For the academy to be able to respond to the skills shortages and re-skill the public servants it has been mandated with the following:
* To align a Talent Pipeline Framework across Local Government and Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) Departments with active corporate support with captains of key industry including engineering, project management, finance, urban management, integrated development planning, economic and social growth, development and strategy, information and communications technologies (ICTs), health and education particularly mathematics, science and technology, Early Childhood Development (ECD) and the FETC sector.
* The "massification" and strengthening of Local Government's leadership competency capacity in future project management roles at all levels for service delivery in public service at an accelerated scale.
* A short-term, demand driven offerings rather than a long-term strategy that will allow for relevant special social/economic programme training and development of a special design and scale required to create a public service that can meet the needs of a developmental state including the second economy.
* The Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), provincial training entities, and private providers could not separately provide training for government of the necessary scale of relevance. Moreover, a coherent framework is necessary to integrate their contribution to create a skilled and competent public service managerial and leadership capacity.
* The academy will forge strong links with its local/provincial/national counterparts to build the ethos of a unified single public service in collaboration with Department of Provincial and Local Government's Local Government Academy (LOGOLA) and other service providers in sharing of knowledge, capacity and support in service delivery.
* Seeks immediate local and international expert practitioners, academic and public service, to complement the fixed programme, chosen for their capacity to bring fresh insights to public administration.

Issued by: Department of Education, Gauteng Provincial Government
16 May 2008
Source: Department of Education, Gauteng Provincial Government (http://www.education.gpg.gov.za)