The South African Skills Development Act (1995)

The Skills Development Act was passed in 1995 as part of a series of acts that was aimed at promoting the NSDS and addressing key social and economic problems in our country, such as high unemployment and low skills levels. The overall purpose of this act is to develop the skills of the South African workforce, which would improve their prospects of finding work or earning a regular income, which in turn would enable them to enjoy a reasonable quality of life. In addition, the Act is aimed at improving the productivity of the workforce, which will stimulate economic growth and raise the competitiveness of South Africa’s economy.

This Act introduced a planned approach to integrating skills planning at national, provincial, sector and company level. It established mechanisms for encouraging and co-ordinating the skills development processes of small and large private companies, government departments, interest groups, training institutions and key role players in sectors of the economy.

As part of this planned approach, employers are requested to develop annual Workplace Skills Plans, describing the skills priorities in the organisation or company as well as actions planned to address these. The Skills Development Facilitator of an organisation is tasked with co-ordinating the development of the WSP. This feed into the annual Sector Skills Plan developed by each SETA for sectors of the economy, in which it describes the results of its analysis of the sector skills, together with recommendations and a list of skills priorities for that sector.

Purpose of the Skills Development Act:

• To develop the skills of the South African workforce.
• To increase the level of investment in education and training in the labour market and to improve the return on that investment.
• To encourage employers to use the workplace as an active learning environment and to create opportunities for learning for employees and the unemployed.
• To encourage employees to participate in learner ships and other training programmes.
• To improve the employment prospects of persons previously disadvantaged by unfair discrimination and to redress those disadvantages through training and development/education.
• To ensure the quality of education and training in and for the workplace.
• To assist work-seekers and retrenched workers to find work.
• To assist the employers to find qualified employees.
• To provide and regulate employment services.

Click here to view a video that explains an introduction to the Skills Development Act.