Learnerships: a business hack for SA companies

Economic growth in South Africa is desperately needed, but this requires job creation and skills development to meet our current and future needs. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is through learnerships.

By Daniel Orelowitz, managing director at Training Force

An integrated skills development intervention, learnerships are aimed at promoting growth in employment and facilitating capacity building across sectors to address scarce and critical skills shortages. Learnerships are attractive for businesses since a Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) score and tax benefits are available; however, managing these programmes can be a massive undertaking. Here, it is advisable for companies to partner with an accredited training provider to sidestep the system while gaining all the B-BBEE and tax benefits with none of the associated administrative and compliance burdens.

In short, outsourcing their learnership programmes is the business hack every company needs to embrace in 2023.

Currently managed by the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs), learnerships are directly related to occupations and roles. They provide a pathway that leads individuals through to accredited National Qualifications Framework (NQF) qualifications. Learnerships ensure that more people are trained for a specific working environment and businesses benefit from having a more skilled and experienced workforce.

Through such skills development programmes, learners are now able to further their education while employers contribute to the establishment of a pool of skilled labour that can either be absorbed permanently into their organisations or redirected to be of benefit elsewhere in the industry.

In a format that combines structured learning with hands-on work experience, learnerships are key to ensuring that individuals are equipped with the theoretical knowledge necessary to work in their field and the practical know-how necessary to secure a job in that field. As attractive as the business benefits of learnerships may be, companies generally must source eligible candidates and have them vetted and onboarded, all of which direct time and resources from other core functions of the organisation.

An experienced training provider can step in here and take on the recruitment, enrolment and management of the right candidates for the company’s learnerships. As training and employee development specialists, it is their core business to help their clients align with the requirements of learnership programmes, such as the Youth Employment Service (YES) programme.

This learnership programme provides the company with exceptional B-BBEE benefits, while greatly assisting to close the skills gap in the

CHIETA, the chemical industry’s education and training authority, embarked on the implementation of a pilot project: blended learning approach through a coded welding skills programme that explored face-to-face, online, welding simulation and practical learning in line with technology’s trajectory worldwide.

The pilot project accommodated 115 students at six TVET colleges in four provinces and is part of CHIETA’s ongoing drive to embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Yershen Pillay, CHIETA’s CEO, says the blended learning approach is also an indirect response to an instruction from the Department of Higher Education, Science and Innovation for SETAs to revise their skills development initiatives.

Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation

Buti Manamela states that the challenges presented by the pandemic created opportunities for training service providers to accelerate digital-based skills development strategies. These strategies were envisioned to re-skill, trans-skill and up-skill large numbers of workers to take up opportunities within existing enterprises or start new businesses and co-operatives. Manamela explains that the project provides the TVET colleges with the opportunity to improve the quality of their training, while also ensuring that recommendations on the implementation of a blended learning approach can be developed within the sector going forward.

“From the lessons learnt by the TVET colleges through the blended learning approach, we will be in a stronger position to establish best practices that advance job creation and boost the country’s economic prospects,” adds Manamela. CHIETA has explored wide-ranging new approaches in the digitisation of skills development, which included in-depth research into the status of e-learning and e-assessments.

Pillay says, “The implementation of this pilot project is one of the recommendations of this research. Our programme’s comprehensive curriculum was developed with participation by several stakeholders and is registered with the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) and supported by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET),” Pillay adds. “This pilot project holds benefits for the participating TVET colleges, as well as for the wider skills development sector within our SETA’s sphere of operation,” he says.