Cape Town - The Skills Development Bill, introduced in the National Council of Provinces, aimed to ensure the realisation of the most pragmatic approaches to education and training in the workplace, Membathisi Mdladlana, the labour minister, said yesterday.
Mdladlana said South Africa "no longer needs large numbers of unskilled labour" and it should reskill existing workers and provide focused programmes to train school leavers with appropriate skills.
He encouraged the formation of partnerships between unions, firms and government departments to achieve this goal.
Between 1973 and 1993, the proportion of highly skilled jobs needing at least a post-matriculation diploma rose from 10 percent to 17,3 percent. The proportion of skilled jobs rose from 28,6 percent to 34,3 percent.
At the same time, the semi-skilled and unskilled categories declined from 61,3 percent to 48,4 percent.
"Of the economically active population in South Africa, only 3 million are skilled or highly skilled while 7 million are so-called semi-skilled or unskilled and 4 million are unemployed," Mdladlana said.
This profile compared badly with those of other countries, but many firms "simply do not train their current workforce to meet their needs", he said.
The planned skills, education and training authorities that would be established for the various sectors would analyse skills needed and develop sector skills plans.
These plans would be "future oriented ... (and) will signal to those looking for jobs, as well as those in jobs, where the skill opportunities in the future are pointing," Mdladlana said.
The European Union has been asked to help finance 10 action research projects that would aim to train a minimum of 4 000 school leavers by the end of 2001.
Productivity enhancing plans will be tested in at least 30 firms by the time the planned new skills development levy on firms will be introduced in April 2000.
The bill, which has been approved, does not provide for the levy, which will have to be passed as a separate money bill.