Amidst a myriad of change happening across the world at government and socio-economic levels due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Skills Development Corporation (SDC) has shared its views on how these changes have affected the skills development sector in South Africa.
“Nothing has changed from a government legislation perspective,” says Mikaela Robertson, key accounts manager for SDC. “Business BEE scorecard requirements remain the same. One slight change however, is per the National Minimum Wage Act (amended in February this year), remuneration processes for clients who reabsorb learners has been affected slightly.”
This is good news for business as, despite the skills development levy holiday granted by government during the pandemic, companies will still be audited for those months and rated from an expenditure perspective when processing their BEE scorecard submission.
“Where the effects of Covid-19 have been slightly trickier, is for the learners’ practical elements of the learnership programme,” says Melissa van Aswegan, Operations – ETQA manager for SDC. “Seventy percent of our programme is based on practical, in-situ learning and with limited spaces governed by social distancing, this has had an impact.”
Although there has been no news from SETA how they plan to implement and host the physical part of learnership programmes, SDC has already set wheels in motion to be able to facilitate as much of the practical applications within their stable of skills development divisions that have been designed to future-proof South African youth.
“At this stage we have placed some learners in our fully-functional call centre and we facilitate practical learnerships across the SDC Wealth side of the business that operates as an independent financial services business,” says Van Aswegan.
SDC believe that more pressure will be put on businesses to facilitate on-site practical learning locations, so finding a partner that has or is already taking significant steps in setting these plans in motion, will be how they lead the charge in the evolution of a post-Covid-19 learnership environment.