By the National Business initiative

South African youth continue to face several challenges in their attempts to make a successful transition to the labour market. Their pathways from schooling become stunted early on due to limited opportunities in post school education and training. 

The challenge

For those youth who do gain access to technical and vocational education and training (TVET), the qualifications are theoretical in nature, poorly delivered and colleges do not provide much access to practical training. There are also limited opportunities to gain work experience and on-the-job training.

As a result, the TVET system does not provide adequate signals to employers that their graduates are worthy candidates as either trainees or employees. This contributes to high levels of inefficiency in recruitment processes, and employers face the heavy financial and resource burden of having to address their skills needs amongst the available supply of school leavers and college graduates. In the context of low economic growth and resource constraints, the pressures on industry invariably impacts on its ability to address this skills mismatch, resulting in persistent skills shortages across a range of occupations and pervasive unemployment for large numbers of youth.

Therefore, the pathways from school to work are not conducive for providing a cost-effective and sustainable solution to the creation of a skills pipeline for employment creation. Government has put in place a number of demand-side incentives for enabling effective pathways, but these incentives cannot realise their objectives if the supply of skills and the mechanisms for linking this supply into these incentives are not addressed.

The challenges around poor TVET supply and industry entry points operate in a context of the absence of a social partnership between government, the private sector and other relevant stakeholders. As such, there are limited platforms for effective engagement around comprehensive solutions.

The Green Skills in TVETs initiative

The National Business Initiative (NBI), together with Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, Confederation of Danish Industry (DI), GIZ, Business Leadership South Africa, Nedbank and the Institute of Plumbing South Africa (IOPSA) has been running a programme to scale-up pathways into the Green Economy through public TVET colleges.

The Green Economy provides a range of opportunities for large-scale employment creation. However, pathways into entry jobs in the Green Economy and the occupational roles therein are not well defined and structured. This restricts the potential of the Green Economy in realising its full scope of employment creation.

The NBI Green Skills TVET Programme (GSTP) seeks to unlock some of the opportunities in the Green Economy and create more effective TVET learning pathways for young people into these opportunities. This note outlines a proposed partnership between NBI and the Gauteng Department of Economic Development (GDED) in realising the objectives of this programme and thereby contributing to expand learning and employment opportunities for unemployed youth.

The GSTP builds off a strong foundation laid by two previous programmes designed and managed by the NBI in the TVET college sector — the Construction Industry Partnership and the Solar Water Heating Installation and Maintenance project. These programmes have illustrated some of the key ingredients for realising successful pathways through colleges into labour market opportunities and form the basis for this initiative.

These programmes illustrate the type of model of college delivery that: best prepares students for the demands of the workplace; enhances the capacity of TVET colleges to deliver demand-led programmes; and facilitates the necessary interaction between industry and colleges. The model also provides signals by industry as to the quality of candidates they expect from colleges and for industry to see the value of engaging with public TVET colleges.

Programme scope

Building on the NBI’s extensive experience in working with the TVET sub-system, the core objective of the GSTP will be to enhance the role of TVET colleges as centres of innovative programme delivery aligned to employment opportunities in local economic areas.

This will be achieved through a social dialogue approach, building and maintaining effective social partnerships and a fundamental paradigm shift in the design and delivery of college programmes. It will also be achieved through ensuring the programmes being offered are aimed at preparing young people for entry into the workplace and meeting the needs of employers.

The programme has two broad objectives:

1. Demonstrate a TVET college intervention model that significantly improves teaching and learning and industry responsiveness and can be replicated across the TVET sub-system.
2. Create scalable and sustainable pathways for TVET College students to mid-level Green Skills occupations in large, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), offering pathways to artisan trades and self-employment.

Key elements of the programme

Key elements of the three-year programme include the following:

• Demand Activation — working through extensive employer networks to unlock “latent” demand for entry level technical roles across the green economy.
• Defined learning pathways — working with employer bodies and regulatory bodies, such as the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (SAPVIA), Institute of Plumbing South Africa (IOPSA) and Plumbing Industry Registration Board (PIRB) to create new designations and recognition for entry level occupations and establish the minimum competence requirements for the workplace learning requirements.
• Appropriate selection and matching of TVET College candidates to the requirements of workplace roles.
• A 12-month work integrated programme, combining practical skills, work readiness and workplace learning. The curriculum will combine foundational engineering skills with more specialised skills linked to SWH and PV manufacturing, installation, repair and maintenance.
  • The first six months will be delivered through a dual training model, combining institutional training in the colleges with workplace training. The work readiness training will be integrated with the institutional training and then reinforced in the workplace. The workplace training will be conducted under the supervision of qualified and experienced electricians and plumbers.
  • The second six months will comprise pure workplace learning where the skills will be further reinforced and practiced under the supervision of a qualified artisan.
  • During the 12 months, candidates will follow a structured programme and complete a logbook regularly signed-off by their supervisors.

At the end of the placement period, candidates will either be absorbed into jobs as an electrical or plumbing assistant (with a potential pathway to a trade) and support offered to those who would prefer to start their own businesses.

Partners

The partnership includes: NBI, Confederation of Danish Industry (DI), Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA), GIZ, Nedbank, Trade Unions (NUM, NEHAWU, NAPTOSA) and TVET Colleges: Northlink and Tshwane North have confirmed their participation in the initiative, Central Johannesburg College (NBI is awaiting confirmation of participation from DHET following unrest at the college in 2018), South West College (consultative discussions with the college will resume in February), and Cape College, False Bay, Umfolozi and Buffalo City (will be invited to take part in the initiative.

General points

1. Securing demand upfront is one of the critical success factors of this initiative as evidenced in the demonstration project with Central Johannesburg College where 24 candidates except one, are in jobs, with six expressing an interest in starting their own businesses.
2. Focusing on Green Skills provides a platform to demonstrate the implementation of the broader IRM concept while at the same time strengthening the capacity of TVET colleges to be agile and forward-looking in their response to demand and in preparing youth for shifts in the world of work. The approach can be replicated and adapted for use in non-technical fields of study.
3. The project forms part of the Jobs Summit Agreements where 7 500 candidates will be placed in Installation Repair and Maintenance jobs with the Green Skills initiative contributing 1 260 candidates over three years.
4. Although private funding has been secured, there is a budget shortfall for stipends. SETA funding is urgently needed for additional funding.

Skills and jobs in the plumbing industry

The programme partners have initiated a programme to develop learning and employment pathways for Technical Plumbing Assistant, targeting unemployed youth and offering a pathway to becoming a qualified plumber. The programme will also provide a specific specialisation in solar water heating over and above a strong plumbing foundation. This programme forms part of the Installation, Repair and Maintenance (IRM) Initiative, a large-scale programme to unblock barriers and increase entry pathways into technical occupations for a large number of unemployed youth.

What skills will the IRM workers in Plumbing/Solar Water Heating have?

The IRM programme in plumbing/solar water heating will bridge the gap between engineering theory from public TVET colleges and work-readiness skills, both in terms of practical skills and work behaviours, thereby preparing the young person to enter the workplace ready to engage positively in on-the-job training and development. The learning pathway is aligned to the formal plumbing qualifications.

What are we asking from companies?

Candidates will receive theoretical and practical instruction through a public TVET college, after which they will require a 10-month period of workplace learning in a plumbing company to become fully competent as a Technical Plumbing Assistant.

During this period, companies will provide mentorship and candidates will be required to complete a logbook to demonstrate achievement of competence. During this 10-month period, the candidates will receive a basic stipend to cover daily living expenses. The stipend will be funded by one of the project partners.

Benefits for companies participating in the programme

The initiative, with its multiple exit pathways provides an opportunity for employers looking to tap into a high-potential technical skills talent pool of young people for its entry-level employment needs, enterprise/supplier development incubation and apprenticeship opportunities.

This programme will also be extended in the future to existing employees who need to be upskilled.

Interested employers who are willing to host students for workplace learning should contact Cecil Macheke on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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Information Supplied and interview with Cecil