Keynote address by Premier DD Mabuza at the Mpumalanga Provincial Human Resource Development Strategy Summit, Ingwenyama Conference and Sport Resort
Programme Director and Director-General of the Province, Mr Jacob
Rabodila
Members of the Executive Council
Executive Mayor of Ehlanzeni District Municipality, Cllr Letta Shongwe
Members of the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature
Our traditional leaders
Heads of Departments and other officials from the provincial government
Representatives of Local Government
Our social partners, representatives of the business community, labour and
broader civil society
Invited guests from various sectors, academia, research organisations, higher
education institutions, the skills sector, professional bodies, and the youth
Fellow citizens, ladies and gentlemen
Thank you MEC Mhaule for the warm words of
introduction.
It is an honour for me to be here with you at this Human Resource
Development Strategy Summit.
Over the two days we must finalize the provincial Human Resource
Development Strategy.
As MEC Mhaule has directed us, we would have failed if at the end of
the two days we have not reached consensus on a common and shared vision for
Human Resource Development in our province.
Let us give hope to the people of the province and show that we have their interests at heart by achieving the following milestones:
- Reaching agreement on the nature of the Human Resource Development
challenges that face us
- identifying the strategies we intend to adopt in order to address
them,
- agreeing on the actions we will undertake in identified
timeframes,
- clarifying the institutional arrangements we must establish in order to effectively finance, execute, monitor and evaluate our interventions.
These were MEC Mhaule’s instructions and I am happy to begin this
address by reminding you of them.
My task is one of elaborating on why we are here, the significance of
the provincial HRD Strategy, and our expectations of each one of you from the
different sectors.
Programme Director,
Human Resource Development is understood in many ways but the experts
tell us that it essentially involves;
“Activities of education, initial training, continuous training, and lifelong learning that develop and maintain individuals’ employability and productivity over a lifetime”
Our country’s Human Resource Development Strategy- HRD-SA, on which
there will be further elaboration during the course of the Summit, notes that;
“HRD refers to formal and explicit activities that will enhance the ability of all individuals to reach their full potential. By enhancing the skills, knowledge and abilities of individuals, HRD serves to improve the productivity of people in their areas of work – whether these are in formal or informal settings. Increased productivity and improvements to the skills base in a country supports economic development, as well as social development”
So in many ways, as the quotations suggest, Human Resource Development
is important not only for achieving a growing and employment creating economy
but also for us to begin to address poverty alleviation, inequality and
underdevelopment.
In this day and age, with increasing global economic uncertainty and
massive changes in the nature of competition in global markets, technological
change and other manifestations of globalization, learning and knowledge have
reached new heights of importance.
It is in this context, that HRD has been identified as a vital
instrument in all government strategies to accelerate development.
However, as the International Labour Organization (ILO) warns us, HRD
is not just about preparing people for the workplace, but broader human
development;
“The economy becomes more productive, innovative and competitive through the existence of more skilled human potential. Human resources development and training also underpin the fundamental values of society - equity, justice, gender equality, non-discrimination, social responsibility, and participation.”
We are gathered here at this Summit because the national strategy is
quite clear on the role of provinces. We are not expected to just copy the
national programme.
In terms of the document, the provincial or even local HRD strategy;
“need to reflect the priorities of the HRD-SA through the lens of local and sectoral conditions, cater for the indicators over which they have jurisdiction, and include activities and programmes that cater for their own strategic priorities and imperatives”.
In your deliberations at this Summit please consider whether our
strategy meets these criteria.
Is it a strategy that truly reflects and responds to the conditions in
our province?
For example, we are a rural province but how does the strategy envisage
the promotion of Human Resource Development in the rural areas?
Or are we again leaving things to chance and in a few years we will
pretend to be surprised when all the skills development is taking place in the
towns, in Emalahleni, Secunda and Mbombela?
Programme Director,
We are gathered here largely because of our unhappiness with the state
of affairs regarding Human Resource Development in our country in general and in
our province in particular.
We recognize that these weaknesses in HRD will have negative impacts on
our ability to establish a competitive world class provincial economy and
deliver a better life for our people.
But how did we get here?
It must be recognized by all that colonialism and apartheid are the
main culprits which institutionalized inequalities in
access to assets, employment, income, residence, education and training, and
social amenities such as health, social benefits and sanitation.
There were laws and regulations that ensured that HRD
served a minority whilst the majority were expected to be at the margins of the
economy and society existing only as source of cheap unskilled labour.
Don’t we all remember Verwoerd and his infamous statement
that the black academic curriculum was to be limited to basic literacy and
numeracy because Africans were meant to be ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water
only’!
Since 1994, the ANC-led democratic government has
attempted to undo the outcomes of such immoral policies. But the structural
nature of the impacts means that we have achieved limited success.
The Human Resource Development challenges that our country
and province face remain quite daunting. They are immense but must be addressed.
We must be steadfast as we seek to enhance the ability of
all individuals to reach their full potential. This should be for all, be they
white or black, male or female, in an urban or rural area.
The provincial HRD Strategy document highlights in more
detail the nature of these challenges and will be presented at the Summit.
However, please afford me the opportunity to note a few;
- Our school system and the education we provide for
our learners’ leaves a lot to be desired.
- It gives me no satisfaction when the report on the
Annual National Assessments placed the province number last in the mastery
of literacy and numeracy in grades 3 and 6;
- The higher education and training system is weak
though improving. No one derives joy from the reality that the statistics
show that only 7% of the population has tertiary education;
- Unemployment is high and above the national figures.
To worsen the picture the majority of the unemployed are youth. Some even
get ‘discouraged’ to be part of the labour force and are sitting at home,
idling, and not even looking for work
- Our province has experienced a significant increase
in the brain-drain and has a limited or no coherent strategy for the
retention of critical skills;
The HRD Strategy for the province that should be adopted
is one that will also address matching the supply and demand of skills. What
employers need in levels of skills for their workers is what they should be able
to get so that they can remain competitive, wherever they are located in the
province,
We should not shy away from assessing the
whole institutional landscape for HRD in the province, so to address limited
co-ordination and engagement with the SETA’s and the role of the Mpumalanga
Regional Training Trust (MRTT)
We have to respond to the fragmented and lack of
integrated planning for HRD how and it cripples sustainable HRD.
It is not just about the numbers. A few years ago the social partners
set up the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) which argued
that, “our central challenge is that there is a failure of systems to
co-ordinate the availability of human capital with the required skill levels in
the right amounts, at the right time’.
It is imperative that we respond appropriately as a province where such
gaps exist.
Programme Director,
Since the dawn of democracy the ANC-led government has prioritized
human resource development as part of efforts to bring a better life for all.
HRD was prominent in the Reconstruction and Development Programme
(RDP), in the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) policy and an HRD
strategy was first launched in 2001 with a review undertaken once a new
administration was in place in 2009.
At a national level, the HRD-SA is complimented by
- The National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS) 2005-2010
(Including the Scarce Skills List 2007);
- The Basic Education Strategic Plans which articulate on Early
Child Hood Development (ECD) and Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET);
- Further Education and Training (FET) Strategic Framework;
- Higher Education (HE) Strategic Framework;
- Immigration Policy; and
- A HRD Strategy for the Public Sector.
Last year saw the launch of the national HRD Council which is chaired
by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe.
As a province we have paid particular attention to these developments
and that is why today we are pleased to present to our stakeholders a draft
document, the draft provincial HRDS.
Our provincial HRDS has various aims and objectives but amongst these I
wanted to highlight two which clearly show our seriousness in addressing the
challenges identified earlier;
- The Strategy aligns curriculum at
school, FET and tertiary levels according to the needs of the Mpumalanga
Province in collaboration with the Department of Basic Education and the
Department of Higher Education and Training; and
- Provides action plans to address and
retain these scarce skills within the province, which in turn will support
the Provincial Growth and Development Strategy (PGDS) and the Mpumalanga
Economic Growth and Development Path (MEGDP).
At this point one can also pay tribute to previous provincial
government administrations that also elevated HRD and Skills Training in their
programmes.
HRD was one of the pillars of the PGDS launched in 2005.
The province has also continued to support the Mpumalanga Regional
Training Trust (MRTT).
MRTT is mandated to develop the human resource base of the Mpumalanga
Province through the provision of experiential, practical, technical,
hospitality, tourism, entrepreneurship and life skills training.
The main focus is to empower learners, primarily the disadvantaged
communities, industry workers and government employees, to participate in the
broader economic sphere of the province.
A notable achievement of the MRTT is that it is the only institution in
the province and the second in the country that is accredited as a Centre of
Excellence, to offer the construction related programmes.
Programme Director,
The challenges before us are immense. We want to finalize and adopt a
provincial HRDS that is responsive to our needs and contributes to the
development of our people.
This I must emphasize is not something that government can achieve
alone. We need all role players to move with us.
The programme we need to embark upon is fairly simple in my view and I
wish to just highlight a few areas for your consideration.
Education provides the basis for the development of the skills and
knowledge required in the workplace and for human development.
As a government we remain committed to the objective of enhancing the
quality of our education. We shall continue to improve the school infrastructure
and support teachers and learners to achieve better outcomes at schools.
We wish to call upon all stakeholders to play their part. Let us
collectively address the problem of high drop-out and repetition rates in our
schools.
Once again I wish to congratulate those that supported our leaners to
achieve an improved Matric Pass rate last year.
The provincial HRD Strategy will also hopefully give further impetus to
the process of establishing a university in Mpumalanga,
We remain convinced that none of our noble efforts on HRD will succeed
if we do not move with speed on the matter.
Allow me to express our appreciation to the Minister of Higher
Education and Training, Dr. Blade Nzimande, for his continued co-operation and
support in his regard.
Programme Director,
Allow me to conclude by emphasizing the importance of the provincial
HRD Strategy for our success as a province and in enhancing the possibility of
us meeting the developmental targets being set out in the almost finalized
Mpumalanga Economic Growth and Development Path (MEGDP).
As we deliberate during the course of the Summit, let us be mindful of
these instructive words from the national HRD Strategy;
“HRD represents a key lever for accelerating economic growth and development in South Africa. The responsibilities of government arising from this strategy are significant. However, the strategy is not solely related to the responsibilities of government. It is a call to all stakeholders and agents that have a role to play in HRD: workers, employers, the non-governmental sector, educators, learners, parents, individuals and the community. It is a call to create a better life for all South Africans”
I thank you
Issued by the Office of the Premier, Mpumalanga Provincial Government
