Madam Deputy Speaker and our Cuban friends in the gallery, the ANC has always viewed education as a means of promoting good citizenship as well as preparing our people for the needs of a modern economy and a democratic society.
However, South Africa is experiencing a skills shortage, which may have a debilitating effect on the country's future economic growth. The shortage of professionals, particularly artisans, may impact negatively on our country's endeavourers to achieve the targeted 6% growth rate in the period of 2010 to 2014. Indeed, to deal with these challenges, the Department of Higher Education and Training has earmarked about R2,3 million for scarce skills areas for the 2010-2011 financial year, as well as the 2011-2012 financial year. This is in line with the broad objectives of the ANC government, the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition, Jipsa, which was launched in March 2006 to focus on the scarce and critical skills required to deliver on their commitment, and targeted to the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa, Asgisa.
This initiative places the future of education and training colleges at the centre of the popular drive to transfer skills to our people, provide institutions with more resources, and scale up dedicated bursary schemes to popularise and subsidise attendance at Further Education and Training institutions. Thank you.