07 September 2005

Here is the latest news from AGRISETA...

LEVY PAYERS - SUBMIT YOUR TRAINING REQUIREMENTS FOR FUNDING WITH YOUR WSP

To meet the targets set for the 2006/2007 financial year, we request all levy paying companies to identify the skills and training needs within their sector, such as:

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 companies to submit their proposal for specific training requirements for the financial year (2006/2007), so that they may be considered for funding.

Please attach your proposals to your WSP and forward these to:

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

Primary Agriculture:
Amandie Gerber
Email: amandie@agriseta.co.za
Tel: 012 325 1655
Fax: 012 325 1677

DEADLINE: 30th SEPTEMBER 2005.