SA youth benefitting from Setas – Naicker

With more than 53 000 pupils equipped with various skills and 33 222 awarded certificates in the past seven years, the Fibre Processing and Manufacturing Sector Education and Training Authority’s (FPM Seta) campaign to empower young people is finally paying dividends, says FPM’s manager for planning, reporting and research Poovendren Naicker.

Addressing the skills development summit in Midrand yesterday, Naicker said the key objectives of the gathering was to raise quality of education, training and the “promotion of continuous professional development within organisations”.

The Seta had 13 subsectors in clothing, footwear, forestry, furniture, general goods, leather, packaging, printing, print media, publishing, paper, wood, and textiles.

The entity is responsible for the implementation of a sector skills development strategy in the provision of skills development services.

Naicker said: “We’re involved in the disbursement of mandatory grants linked to workplace skills planning.

“The Seta also disburses discretionary grants for the implementation of learning programmes and sector specific projects.”

With South Africa’s unemployment rate sitting at a staggering 27.7% – with youth aged between 15 and 34 remaining vulnerable in the labour market with a 38.6% unemployment statistic – he said the Seta has aligned its strategy with the recent Presidential Job Summit outcomes. These include job creation, providing training and retraining opportunities to the unemployed through learnership programmes.

This year’s summit has attracted a large number of exhibitors, including the SA National Editors’ Forum, Tiger Brands, Nestle SA, Damelin College, designer David Tlale, Printing SA, Aranda Learnership College, and University of SA.

More than 400 pupils from three Gauteng schools attended the summit.