Services SETA, Blackburn College enter skills transfer partnership

In the Western Cape, the South Cape College, West Coast Further Education Training and Northlink College have been identified as beneficiaries.

Through this strategic partnership, the model currently used by Blackburn will be replicated by the SSETA in seven other identified FET Colleges in the country. Ten FET Colleges have been targeted as the initial beneficiaries of the collaboration, which are situated within the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Limpopo, Kwa-Zulu Natal and the Northern Cape.

The first four programmes that will be implemented from the partnership focus on sharing best practice around Lecturer Development, Curriculum Development, Project Management and Leadership Development. Sihle Moon, SSETA administrator, says: "This partnership intends to address the challenges facing public FET colleges in South Africa and how best to get these institutions working with the SSETA to work towards the standards of delivery successfully implemented by Blackburn College."

Vocational and Apprenticeship training

Blackburn College has achieved a 100% success rate with its 116 vocational courses and an 89% success rate on the apprenticeships programmes, against the national average of 64% in the UK.

Ian Clinton, Principal & CEO of Blackburn College, says: "We are proud to be in partnership with the Services SETA. This partnership heralds a new era in the exchange and sharing of best international practices, with skills transfer helping to make the South African FET colleges the first choice for learning. We will enable SSETA to deliver fast and efficiently in its promotion of the Public FET colleges."

The partnership is in line with the view of Blade Nzimande, the Minister of Higher Education and Training, that the skills gap can be closed by ensuring that new entrants to the labour market are adequately skilled through vocational and apprenticeships training at FET Colleges. This will also help in meeting the current economic demand for higher levels of skills as the labour market becomes more specialised.

This will serve to encourage students and other South African citizens who want to develop their skills to make vocational education training (VET) learning their primary choice.

The partnership will facilitate the promotion and development of vocational and apprenticeship training programmes. South Africa currently has a great demand for skills such as project management related to the massive infrastructure development announced by the president in his budget speech.