Madam Deputy Speaker and Mr Deputy President, the portfolio committee has considered the amendments that were effected by the National Council of Provinces regarding the colleges Bill, which was referred to the NCOP on 12 September 2011.
We unanimously adopted those recommendations. Those recommendations relate to the introduction of the definition of a family member in the Bill that was referred. The suggested definition is that family member refers to parents of a member of the college council or a member of any office committee. It refers to siblings, children, including stepchildren and adopted children, a spouse, and a life partner in cohabitation. We felt that this amendment reinforced our work as a committee.
The further additional changes that we introduced were of a grammatical nature, that is substituting "are" for "is", which we thought we should agree to.
You will recall that in the debate we had on 12 September the DA did not support the Bill on the basis that they preferred to retain colleges under the auspices of provincial administrations. We felt that that was unfortunate, because we were very clear on where we needed to go as a country. Also, that could have been motivated by the fact that they wanted to retain and perhaps influence the role of colleges that are clustered here in the Western Cape in their quest for "The People's Republic of the Western Cape".
We hope they will agree with us now, because during the debate in the committee Dr Bosman, who is our new member, replacing the hon Van der Westhuizen, and Dr Kloppers-Lourens agreed with us on these amendments. We hope ... [Inaudible.] ... just riding on the wave of the previous process, you'll support us. [Interjections.] We ... [Inaudible.] ... which could be attested to by those former members who were affected by your redeployment strategy.
We agreed in the committee that the Minister would deal with the issues relating to the parity of benefits for college-employed employees and state employees in the context of the changes that were advanced by that Bill.
There is a need for the upgrading of the skills base of lecturers in the FET sector. There is a need to enhance the programmes or vocational choices that are available in the sector to attract students. All of us in the committee never had any problems on these matters. We may have to hear about whatever issues of grandstanding there were that may emerge from the process, as attested to by the mumblings on the other side.
We therefore, as a committee, recommend that the House adopt this Bill with the amendments, as suggested by the NCOP. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
There was no debate.