BUTI MANAMELA

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Fifty years ago this month, the youth of 1976 rose against an education system designed to prepare them for servitude. Their demand was simple and profound: an education that opens doors rather than closes them.

Half a century later, that demand still underpins everything we do in post-school education and training. It is the standard against which I measure the decision I announce in this piece: a decision about which qualifications South Africa will carry into its future and which it will respectfully retire.

By the end of this month, the last enrolments will close for most qualifications registered before 2009, the so-called legacy qualifications built on the old unit-standards system. In their place stands a new generation of occupational qualifications: 948 of them already registered, each developed with industry and each combining three things the old system too often separated: knowledge, practical skill and structured workplace experience.

I know this transition has generated anxiety. Some of it is understandable. Some of it is fuelled by misinformation. And some of it, frankly, comes from those with a commercial interest in the old system continuing indefinitely. Let me address all three honestly.

First, the case for change. The legacy qualifications served South Africa in their time. Millions of workers hold them, and let me say unambiguously: every qualification already awarded remains valid, recognised and permanently recorded on the national learners’ records database. Nothing announced this month changes that.

But these qualifications were designed for the economy of the 1990s. They favoured the classroom over the workshop. They produced graduates with certificates, but too often without the workplace experience employers demand. In a country where youth unemployment is our most urgent national crisis, we cannot keep certifying people for an economy that no longer exists. Access without success is not enough, and a certificate without a pathway to work is not success.

The purpose of a qualifications system is not to sustain training providers. It is to serve learners and the economy.

We have heard the legitimate concerns of training providers, who have told us that accreditation processes for the new qualifications have been slow, that some replacement qualifications are not yet ready, and that assessment capacity is uneven. Each sector education and training authority (Seta) has made representations on behalf of sectors where the replacement pipeline is incomplete. Employers have raised genuine questions about existing learnership commitments and funded programmes that span the deadline.

We’ve listened to the evidence. The government assessed the affected qualifications individually, sector by sector, with each Seta. The result is not a blanket extension, and it is not a stubborn refusal to adjust. It is a differentiated, evidence-based set of transitional arrangements.

Where a replacement occupational qualification is fully developed and implemented, the transition proceeds — there is no justification for delay. Where the replacement is still in development, targeted extensions of six to 24 months have been granted. Regulatory unit standards that underpin statutory programmes in sectors such as financial services and safety-critical industries have been granted up to three years, because the public interest demands continuity. Trades are treated on the basis of their replacement qualifications, most of which are already in place.

The full list will be published in the Government Gazette on June 15, with every extended qualification, its duration and its occupational replacement also published on the South African Qualifications Authority (Saqa) website. If a qualification is not on that list, the deadline stands. This is the certainty the sector has asked for, and it is the certainty learners deserve.

The more difficult conversation is that some in the private training industry have predicted catastrophe: provider closures, rising unemployment and a system in collapse. I want to engage with this argument directly, because it deserves an answer rather than dismissal.

The purpose of a qualifications system is not to sustain training providers. It is to serve learners and the economy. Where providers have built their business models on perpetually reselling outdated programmes, the discomfort of change is real — but it is not an argument against reform.

The providers who will thrive are those already doing the work of modernising, getting accredited for occupational qualifications, building workplace partnerships and investing in assessment capacity. Thousands have done so. Those who have not should see the extension periods for what they are: time to adapt, not time to lobby.

The youth of 1976 did not march for certificates. They marched for futures. The measure of our qualifications system is not how many pieces of paper it issues, but how many doors those papers open

At the same time, the government must hold itself to the same standard of accountability it demands of others. The Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) must accelerate accreditation turnaround times. The development pipeline for replacement qualifications must move faster. Where new occupational qualifications are not attracting enrolments, we must ask hard questions about their design and relevance rather than assume the market is wrong.

I have appointed a technical task team with dedicated workstreams, including legal, communications, Seta co-ordination and quality assurance, precisely because this reform will be judged on implementation, not intention. The time created by these extensions must be used productively by everyone, including the state.

There is also a warning that must be sounded. As the transition accelerates, so too do bogus operators — institutions selling worthless certificates to desperate young people. A qualification is only valid if offered by an accredited provider and assessed through accredited centres. I urge every learner and parent: verify before you pay. The official registers are on the Saqa and QCTO websites. We will act against those who prey on the hopes of the unemployed.

What does this all amount to? It is one pillar of the skills revolution this government has committed to:

a dual system of learning and earning, where education and workplace experience go hand in hand;
where the skills development levy — increasing from 20% to 40% in mandatory grants — puts real resources behind workplace training; and
where a young person who enrols in a qualification can trust that it leads somewhere.

The youth of 1976 did not march for certificates. They marched for futures. The measure of our qualifications system is not how many pieces of paper it issues, but how many doors those papers open. That is the standard. That is the reform. And that is the commitment I make as we close one chapter of our skills system and open another.