Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA)

1. Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) JUNE 2006 Xolile Caga

2. What is JIPSA? • A high level initiative of government, business and labour, led by the Deputy President, to acquire the priority skills needed to achieve ASGISA’s goal of accelerated and shared economic growth • Joint Task Team – 9 Cabinet Ministers, 5 private sector CEOs, 2 CEOs from the SOEs, 2 labour leaders, leaders from HE, FET and the research institutions • Technical Working Group – experts from government, industry, SAQA, the SETAs, labour, the research community • Secretariat – provided by NBI with funding from the Business Trust

3. What is JIPSA cont… “a practical, focused, results-driven, problem solving, coordinated and collective effort to acquire priority skills that hold back infrastructure development and sustainable economic growth and development”

4. What JIPSA IS NOT • JIPSA is not a new institution • JIPSA is not an attempt to “fix” the entire education and training system • JIPSA is not a duplication of existing structures or institutional arrangements, or readily available research and data analysis • JIPSA is not a numbers game; it is not a tick-box approach to skills acquisition

5. How JIPSA Works Prioritizing & Selecting initiatives Initiate Plan Facilitate Execution Nurture / Hand-over 1 2 3 4 5 • Skills for ASGI-SA projects and initiatives • Tourism • ICT • BPOs • Biofuels etc • Five high profile skills areas for immediate JIPSA engagement • High level, world class engineering and planning skills for the ‘network industries’ – transport, communications, energy. • City, urban and regional planning and engineering skills • Artisanal and technical skills, with priority attention to infrastructure development, housing and energy; • Management and planning skills in education and health • Mathematics, science, ICT and language competence in public schooling. • Analysis of funding and systems issues and constraints • SETA, NSF and government department funding for JIPSA-related initiatives • Alignment between SETA skills plans and JIPSA and ASGI-SA objectives • SAQA Review, NQF and determination of quality assurance mechanisms • composition and functioning of SETA Boards

6. Terms of reference: in summary • To prioritise skills requirements in terms of ASGISA • To assess existing strategies for improving SA’s skills base and the possibilities for synergy between them • To seek solutions to practical coordination problems and system blockages and obstacles in the policy, regulatory, funding and institutional environments • To facilitate the acquisition of priority skills and arrangements for skills transfer • To facilitate “quick win” initiatives to boost skills acquisition and to publicise and build confidence in the priority skills agenda

7. Key Deliverable for June • Detailed proposals, for • Intermediate skills for the infrastructure projects (which skills, target numbers, providers, funding, blockages issues) • Tackling graduate unemployment • ICT proposal • Broad proposals on some of the 5 priority skills areas agreed by JTT: • Initial list of key skills requirements

8. THANK YOU