17 February 2006
	SKILLS DEVELOPMENT TIME TO TRAIN By Razina Munshi

Finance minister Trevor Manuel has announced that learnership tax allowances introduced in 2002 will be extended for another five years to further boost skills development. The allowances will also increase in value, at a cost of about R80m. Manuel says 207 497 people have registered for learnerships since the introduction of the skills development programme. Despite this, the Democratic Alliance says in a statement that the budget does little to address the capacity and skills crisis: "The sector education & training authorities have failed SA and yet their cost to the taxpayer is over R5bn." More money could have been used to provide incentives to the private sector to train employees, it says. Salim Vally, senior researcher at Wits University's education policy unit, says the private sector has been tardy. Learnerships are not of a sufficiently long duration and often do not increase people's employment chances. A set of rules for the tax treatment of bursaries and scholarships provided by employers will be introduced from March 1 2007. There will also be additional learnerships for people with disabilities.