Statement By Minister Of Higher Education, Buti Manamela, On Plans for the Post School Education and Training Sector
Statement By Minister Of Higher Education, Buti Manamela, On Plans for the Post School Education and Training Sector Fellow South Africans Over the past nineteen days, we have listened carefully. We have engaged with students, lecturers, principals, vice-chancellors, researchers, SETA leaders, labour, employers, civil society, and government partners. We have engaged with our universities, our TVET MINISTRY HIGHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA Private Bag X174, PRETORIA, 0001, Tel: +27 12 312 6339, Fax: +27 12 326 1161, 123 Francis Baard Street, PRETORIA and CET colleges, our skills centres, and our communities. We have listened to the frustrations, the hopes, and the ideas. We have heard the calls for a system that works for the people of South Africa. Today, we respond. The truth is that our post-school education and training system remains fragmented and uneven. Too many young people are locked out of opportunity. Too many skills taught are not the skills the economy needs. Too many institutions are underperforming. Governance failures weaken delivery. Funding models remain unstable. Data is incomplete. The system is not coherent enough to guarantee the return on investment that South Africans expect. After three decades of transformation, ten years since Fees Must Fall, and twenty years since our universities and colleges mergers, we must admit that progress has been uneven. We must learn from the past, fix what is broken, and reimagine what is possible. We are restating these challenges to re-establish national consensus on the monstrosity of the problem in front of us, and to remind ourselves, in the spirit of Professors Bengu and Asmal, that nothing is insurmountable. Our work from today is guided by six core objectives. First, to integrate the system into a single, coordinated whole. Second, to expand equitable access to all who can benefit. Third, to ensure responsiveness to the needs of the economy, the labour market, and society. Fourth, to raise the quality of provision and learning outcomes. Fifth, to improve efficiency, governance, and accountability. And sixth, to guarantee sustainability – in funding, in institutional stability, and in the confidence of our people. These objectives are anchored in five strategic pillars. Economic renewal and jobs, ensuring that our graduates are employable and our institutions are aligned to growth sectors. A green just transition, making our skills system a driver of climate resilience and low-carbon innovation. Building public sector capacity, so that our state is equipped to serve the people effectively. Research and innovation, to strengthen our intellectual sovereignty and generate solutions from Africa, for Africa, and the world. And social inclusion, to make sure no one is left behind – whether they live in a rural village, a township, an informal settlement, or a city. To give effect to this, we are structuring our work over three timelines. In the next three months, we will stabilise NSFAS and set in motion a sustainable student funding model. We will establish the PSET Reengineering Task Team, bringing together expertise from across sectors to guide the redesign of our system. We will strengthen SETA oversight, finalise their realignment, and ensure every SETA delivers measurable value. We will begin engagements with the National Treasury on long-term funding solutions. We will launch three major strategic projects – focusing on Skills to Work Transitions, targeting young people not in employment, education or training; Career Choices (currently known as Khetha), targeting school learners from an early age to guide them into learning and work pathways; and Adult Literacy, targeting the four million South Africans who are functionally illiterate. Over the next twelve months, we will pilot autonomous colleges and new CET models to improve agility and responsiveness. We will review the CET landscape to ensure it plays a meaningful role in community development. We will launch TVET curriculum pilots aligned with emerging industries. We will establish a national PSET database to improve planning and accountability. We will begin the roll-out of the NASCA as an alternative pathway for school leavers. We will complete our legislative reviews, addressing gaps and contradictions that undermine system coherence. We will accelerate infrastructure upgrades and ensure campus safety across the system. Over the next four years, we will fully implement a sustainable student funding model. We will consolidate SETA and CET reform. We will drive digital learning across the system, ensuring every learner can benefit from technology-enabled education. We will institutionalise career guidance and lifelong learning pathways from school to work to retirement. We will deepen research and innovation capacity, strengthen our partnerships with industry, and expand our presence on the continent and globally. And we will ensure that our system, as a whole, delivers a clear and measurable return on the public investment it receives. The three flagship projects we announce today will be the spearhead of our renewal. Skills to Work Transitions will connect young people who are out of work and education to structured training and work opportunities, with clear pathways to employment or entrepreneurship. Career Choices will ensure that every learner, from primary school onwards, is exposed to the full range of career options, and guided to choose study and work pathways that match their interests, talents, and the needs of the economy. Literacy for Empowerment will tackle one of the greatest barriers to full participation in our democracy and our economy – the inability to read, write, and comprehend at a functional level – by mobilising institutions, communities, and technology to reach every adult who needs it. To secure the future of our system, we will set up a multi-sectoral task team to review and consolidate three decades of policy and legislative reforms. This task team will learn from the crises that forced transformation, the Fees Must Fall movement, to institutional mergers, and will chart a deliberate, planned transformation for the next generation. The aim is simple – to build a single, coherent, and high-performing postschool education and training system that is fit for purpose in a changing world. We know that none of this can be done by government alone.