Services Sector Education and Training Authority
Services Sector Education and Training Authority
The Services Sector Education and Training Authority (or Services SETA as it is more commonly referred to) was originally established in 2000 to ensure that the skills needs of the services sector would be identified and correctly addressed. The Services SETA committed to achieve this task by forming partnerships with various stakeholders and role-players and by implementing a focused business plan.
Ten years down the line, the Services SETA is still operating, but will change a little bit when the new SETA landscape comes into being in South Africa in March 2011.
How the Services SETA is set to change
The primary change envisaged for the Services SETA is that it will also incorporate the advertising and media sub-sectors from the existing MAPPP-SETA which currently incorporates media, advertising, publishing, printing and packaging, as well as arts and crafts and broadcasting. While media and advertising have been transferred to the Services SAETA, broadcasting has been transferred to the Information and Communication Technology SETA, ICTSETA, and the arts and crafts sub-sectors have been transferred to the newly formulated Culture, Sport, Tourism and Hospitality SETA.
The MAPPP-SETA will cease to exist.
The Service SETA and training levies
All sector education and training authorities (SETAs) were established in terms of the Skills Development Act (1998) and from the beginning of April 2000, were responsible for collecting levies from registered employers. These levies are vital for the funding of all the respective SETAs, of which there will be 21 from March 2011.
The Services SETA levies themselves have been collected by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) – via the Department of Labour – and then disbursed using a management system that has been motivated by skills requirement monitoring and assessment.
This has meant that any discretionary grants, bursaries or other monies payable to those qualifying for “service” education and training has been facilitated by this particular SETA.
Skill requirements valid to the Service SETA
Skills are vital for any services industry, and it is a primary aim of the Service SETA to make sure that all the skill requirements of the sector are identified. Further, it has the task of ensuring that adequate and appropriate skills are more readily available to a larger number of learners and those already in work who need to improve their skills and learning, and therefore their service potential.
At an early stage, the Services SETA undertook to achieve a more favourable balance between supply and demand – which had been identified as a huge problem. The SETA also undertook to ensure that education and training for the services industry in general was:
- provided subject to validation and quality assurance, to ensure that the quality of service would be up to standard,
- of a quality that would meet the agreed standards set by the national framework, and
- of a standard that would ensure that any new entrants into the labour market within this sector were adequately trained within their own sub-sector.
Another primary aim was to ensure that the skills of the current work force (at that time and moving forward) was acknowledged and its skills enhanced by the SETA’s input and activities.
They are responsible for ensuring that learners have access to a relevant workplace experience and that there are internships and apprenticeships that will enable learners to improve their potential
Where to find the Services SETA
The Services SETA is based in Parktown, Johannesburg in Gauteng.
Telephone: (011) 715 1801
Fax: (011) 715 1819
Where to find the current MAPPP SETA
The media and advertising sub-sectors of MAPPP will be transferred to the Services SETA in 2011. Currently MAPPP is based in both the Western Cape, in Cape Town (Tygervalley) and in Gauteng, in Johannesburg (Midrand):
Telephone: (021) 910 3001/ (011) 234 2311
Fax: (021) 910 3080/ (011) 234 2350
Website: Information