Although details were not available late yesterday, the move is likely to change the two departments radically.
The decision was made at a meeting yesterday between Labour Minister and Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, said Whittle.
The African National Congress has repeatedly said that the 23 Setas will remain as they are until March next year, when the government finishes reviewing them.
Large bodies of legislation, including the Skills Development Act and the Skills Development Levies Act (SDLA), will have to be redrafted, which could take a long time, said a labour department consultant.
The SDLA has given the labour ministry, through the Setas, say-so over the national skills levy — 1% of payroll for businesses with an annual turnover of R500000 or more — for the past 10 years.
The two acts had important implications for employers, and the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) should deliberate the proposed changes, so that business could make a meaningful input on the relocation of the Setas, said Business Unity SA (Busa) spokesman Raymond Parsons.
Parsons said Busa had not yet been told of the decision, but would like to be consulted on the implementation of the process. “Busa welcomes the new emphasis on service delivery, and in order to make it highly effective, a consultative process would be necessary.”
Discussions on how the 23 Setas should be restructured have been going on for at least 18 months, with all the preparatory work done in the labour department, said Andre Kraak, director of the Human Sciences Research Council’s education, science and skills development unit.
This would also have implications for a transfer of responsibility.
“More worrying” than the redrafting of legislation was how smoothly this work would now be transferred to Nzimande’s department, Kraak said.
Economist Mike Schussler said the move made sense, but cautioned that the Setas should maintain their contact with business so that they knew what skills were needed.
“You would want to see the Setas keep their practical elements, and build on them. Business and the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) should look into that,” Schussler said.
Nzimande’s “big, big challenge” was to establish a common philosophy that would allow students to move easily between the Setas and the further education and training colleges, universities of technology, and universities, said Kraak. Such training should answer the economy’s needs.
“That is our most severe problem outside of school — no articulation (between the various parts of the education system). It closes up huge possibilities,” he said.
There had been resistance in education circles to forging a stronger relationship between education institutions and the economy, on the “fallacious” argument that doing so would cause a drop in standards, he said.
“In countries where the link is strong there is almost always high- quality universal education,” he said, citing the examples of Malaysia and China.