SETA enables PR empowerment

Whether you pay R50 or R5 000 a month as a Skills Development Levy, you are entitled to get back a portion of the money you have paid.

What is a SETA?

A SETA (Sector Education Training Authority) is a Government initiative to grow the skills within various industries. It is non-profit and is funded by the 1% Skills Development Levy that all businesses pay. The public relations discipline falls under the Marketing Chamber of Services SETA. The Services SETA has 11 industry chambers including Marketing. Other chambers within the Services SETA include Domestic workers; Hairdressers; Recruitment agents, Advertising etc. It was one of the first to be up and running, which is why the PR industry will be one of the first to take advantage of the opportunities to contribute to upskilling professionals - and the considerable tax benefits available. The process is driven by Career Centres in all major cities.

What is a learnership?

A Learnership is a structured programme of necessary training and essential practice, designed to take place over a period of one year. It is structured, in that it combines elements of education and training, with work experience. At the end of the Learnership, learners have the opportunity of being assessed and certified as competent, at a level comparable with people working on a full-time and permanent basis in an industry, such as PR, for example.

A Learnership is a fixed-term contract between Employer and Learner (Employee) and is possibly the only fixed-term contract which does not give rise to any expectation of ongoing employment at the end of the Learnership.

Benefits to employers

The principle benefit of a Learnership is that the Employer has the benefit of receiving a Learnership Grant from the Services SETA, which will cover the costs of all on-the-job training and education, any external training and education, all assessments and also, where the Learner is a new employee and not an existing employee, a Wage Subsidy is granted.

The reason that an industry would be prepared to fund a Learnership in a particular company is that where this type of development occurs, the entire industry benefits from a skills level upliftment and also pre-qualified pools of skilled people (determined by industry demand) become available for employment in jobs for which they have been trained in, and assessed as competent, for.

The training policy also applies to upskilling existing employees, not just new staff.

As an employer you will routinely work with three bodies;

1. Your particular Chamber with whom you will do the following business:

   • You will provide them with the details of your Skills Development Facilitator (internal or external).
     
   • You will submit your workplace skills development plan to them.
     
   • You will submit your levy grant claims to them.

2. SARS with whom you will register for payment of your levy claims.
   
3. The Labour Centres from whom you can obtain trained staff.
   

NEXT ISSUE (5-5-2003): The application process.