The 1st of July 2005 dawned with the emergence of the AgriSETA established from the merger of SETASA and PAETA.

After the conclusion of a seamless process, the operational aspects of the SETA are being addressed. The first of these has been the move of staff from the Lynwood premises to the head office building in Arcadia and the conclusion of the staffing structure resulted in the internal move taking place.

With the staff all gearing up to fill their portfolios, it is opportune to acknowledge the support of all the stakeholders in the process over the past 5 years.

We recognize our need to rely on strategic partners in order to achieve our goals and take this opportunity to express our appreciation and to thank you, one and all, for the pivotal role you played in the achievements of the two SETA’s.

We look forward to your continued support and together we can continue making an impact on the skills levels within our sector.

• Identifying scarce skills in the sector.
  Apart from the shortage of specific and specialist skills in a sector, this could also reflect those skills shortages that pertain to a geographic location, race, gender and age. For example the poultry industry has a critical shortage of managers for breeder farms and hatcheries, while the fruit industry have a lack of researchers
• Learnerships
  Allow learners to obtain qualifications through a work-based learning programme as opposed to following a formal academic educational route
• Apprenticeships
  Allow learners to learn a specialised craft. Overall South Africa is experiencing a dire shortage of tradesmen / artisans, but this is true specifically in the agricultural sector, where millwrights, boilermakers, agricultural technicians and such are in short supply.
• Skills programmes
  Are learning programmes shorter than 6 months that do not result in a full qualification. Skills programmes focus on the specific technical skills that an employee requires to perform tasks in the workplace. Skills programmes can be designed to be stand-alone or they can be developed to form part of a qualification. In both instances they are based on unit standards against which the learner can be proven competent and for which the learner can be awarded a national AgriSETA certificate.
• ABET
  The extremely low level of education and training in the agricultural sector, has prompted the AgriSETA to roll out large scale and individually driven ABET programmes on a national basis.
  
  Stakeholders are encouraged to ensure that their employees achieve competence at ABET levels 3 and 4, as this gives them access to learnerships. In order for us to reach our targets as set in the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS), we request that this programme be fully supported. For the period April 2005 to March 2006, we need to have 2900 learners achieving competence at Levels 3 and 4.
• HIV Aids
  In certain geographic areas, the agricultural communities are hard hit by HIV/AIDS. As a result HIV/AIDS learning programmes can be presented to create an awareness of the disease and its effects.

In the light of the requests above, we call on all sub-sector committees to submit their specific training requirements for this financial year (2005/2006), so that they may be considered for funding.

Please forward your proposals to Myra Hoffman, by no later than close of business on Friday, 16th September 2005

Email: myra@agriseta.co.za
Tel: 021 - 949 4885
Fax: 021 – 945 4253.