Thank you. I was just drawing his attention because he also made a very un-nuanced resolution about the fall of the Berlin Wall ... [Laughter.] ... and forgetting that this is 125th anniversary of that Berlin Conference which divided Africa and caused perpetual problems. So you can't celebrate in a one-sided manner.
The National Board for Further Education and Training, NBFET, and the Ministry have agreed on an urgent national audit on individual institutional arrangements for governance and administration. We are working with stakeholders to secure sufficient support and stability to sustain these changes and to take forward new developments.
Briefly, on the skills subsystem, we are saying that despite the gains made to date in the area of skills development and training, there are a number of challenges we need to attend to. We must have improved co-ordination between the sector education and training authority system and the education and training institutions. We must address the negative perceptions about the Setas. We need to improve strategic utilisation of funds, in particular to minimise the cost of delivery of learnerships and the high amounts of unspent funds in terms of skills development funding.
In addition, we need to improve the alignment of industry needs and the provision of training and skills development, particularly the need to increase the supply of artisans and technicians. In this regard, we will engage with the state-owned enterprises, SOEs, Eskom permitting, the public sector, and other large employers with a view to get them more involved in training through apprenticeships, learnerships and internships. We also need to finalise the alignment with an overarching industrial policy in order to improve the effectiveness of skills development efforts.
There are widespread concerns about the Setas, some of which have previously been articulated in this House. While it is wrong to paint all the Setas with one brush, there is clearly unevenness in their performance. There is definitely a need for an intensive assessment of the Setas to ensure greater accountability, improved employment of resources, better management of funds, and streamlining and alignment of their operations in order that they fulfil their role as a central cog of our skills training and job-creation machinery.
With a reinvigorated and strengthened National Skills Authority, the NSA, we can ensure that the Seta structures are based on a more precise understanding of their role and the priorities they should follow; reflect an appropriate segmentation of the economy that is aligned with emerging industrial strategies; minimise capacity deficits at all levels, avoiding duplication; ensure that these Setas are financially sustainable; and build, at the same time, the public sector to play a leading role in skills development.
Part of this broad process of engagement will be a strategic planning session with the National Skills Authority which we are going to have in December to which we will invite the Council of Higher Education and other statutory bodies. My department has already begun to engage the National Skills Fund, the NSF. The intention is to urgently improve the operating systems and procedures so that it can better fulfil its mandate. This includes reviewing the process and criteria around the training lay-off scheme and reporting to Nedlac - the National Economic Development and Labour Council - so that any blockages in this fund are used timeously for their intended purpose. We are indeed disturbed because the information we have is that much as we have set aside R2,4 billion for the training lay- off scheme, only four companies thus far have taken this up, and it is important that we identify what the blockages are.
We will also be holding a strategic planning day for Setas next week, during which we want to forge a new way of working amongst them so that they can learn from each other as they explore ways in which our priorities can be taken forward urgently. The priorities that we have set for the Setas during the extension year 2010-11 will be to align with government strategic priorities and focus on immediate priorities, including the Seta- FET college partnerships, especially the provision of opportunities for work-based learning, particularly from students in FET colleges and universities of technology.
We will also soon be establishing the Qualifications Council for Trade and Occupations. I'm pleased to announce that I'm in the process of appointing a chairperson for this body, known as the QCTO, and we expect the board to immediately begin with its work of establishing a council. We will request the QCTO to work in close collaboration with other qualifications and quality assurance councils in the higher education and training system.
Madam Deputy Speaker, hon members and comrades, in closing I wish to commit my Ministry and department to working with energy and commitment towards realising these goals. We are also calling upon each member of this House, in his or her own way, to also make a contribution to this task of trying to drive a skills revolution in this country, so that, indeed, as two great thinkers once said, that the free development of each does indeed become the condition for the free development of all. Although the revolution has no copyright, those words were from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Siyabonga kakhulu. [Thank you very much.] [Applause.]