No wonder that the National Skills Fund, for which the Minister is responsible, during its last audited financial year, spent only a fraction of the money it gained from employers' levies.
Now, hon Minister, these are the sorts of logs in the eye that should really concern you. Those responsible for the training of apprentices possess scarce skills and often find it easy to opt out of skills training. Therefore, we have lost much of our capacity for skills training. The success of any training intervention and any training system is first and foremost determined by what is happening in the classroom or wherever the training is taking place. The necessity to retain our best trainers has been completely neglected in the successive skills development strategies of government.
Inappropriate policies have done enormous damage to skills training, similar to what we have seen in our schools with the outcomes-based education system. The National Skills Development Strategy is too quiet about the challenge to bring down the inefficiencies and enormous cost per learner under the present Seta system. Government contributes to the high cost by continually shifting priorities and expectations.
The department and Setas seem to be oblivious to the need to training providers for longer-term planning and longer-term contracts. Training providers need to be assured of a regular intake of learners. In this way, trainers will be able to recoup their set-up and development costs over a number of intakes. They will also be able to develop better practices for learning. At present, many well-equipped training facilities are gathering dust.
Let me now turn to just one of various problematic aspects of the proposed budget. One of the remarkable features of the budget is the sharp rise in the expected expenditure of the office of the Minister. It rose sharply during the past year with the appointment of yet another Deputy Minister, but what is completely unclear is why the costs related to the Ministry must double to R29 million within the next three years.
Minister, in short, we want you to do everything legally possible to stabilise and simplify the skills development system. Many qualifications are only offered by private training institutions. I call on you to consider making some of the enormous reserves in skills funds available to also allow poor learners to have access to these often-expensive high-level qualifications. It is so unfair that some qualifications remain reserved for those learners whose parents can afford to pay for their training.
The DA would like to see a skills development system that is simple, efficient, stable and will open opportunities to all learners in accordance with their talents and abilities. In an open-opportunity environment, no learner should be denied the opportunity to follow their dreams. They should not be denied access to bursaries to study at private institutions because of government's inherent dislike of private sector training providers. Thank you.