Skills development at Louisvale

It is ultimatelly agreed that South Africa is not yet equipped with the skills it needs for economic and employment growth.

INTRODUCTION:
It is ultimatelly agreed that South Africa is not yet equipped with the skills it needs for economic and employment growth. Hence, the Skills Development Act and the Skills Development Levies Act were passed in 1998 and 1999 respectively. The objectives of this Acts are amongst others:

• To develop the skills of the South African workforce.
• To improve the quality of life of workers and their work prospects.
• To improve productivity in the workplace and the competitiveness of employers
• To use workplaces such as Louisvale as an active learning place.
• The Act also provides for the establishment of the National Skills Fund to assist small employers such as Louisvale to implement skills development programmes and to meet the stringent demands of Globilisation, Ethical Trade, EuroGap etc. Hence the application to the National Skills Fund for a special project to assist Louisvale to these demands.

OBJECTIVES OF LOUISVALE PROJECT
The objective of the Louisvale Skills development Project to:
• Develop the skills and quality of life of all employees (including management) of Louisvale.
• To improve the productivity and the competitiveness of Louisvale.
• To create a safe and healthy environment at Louisvale.
• To decrease wastage and accidents.
• To increase morale and loyalty to Louisvale and
• To firmly place Louisvale as one of the top wine producing farms.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Application was made to the Primary Agriculture Education and Training Authority to fund a learnership for 24 learners and Skills Programmes for about 30 learners.
1. Learnerships are learning programmes that lead to an occupational qualification.
Learnerships include classroom based learning and on-the-job training at a workplace. Eight permanent workers and 16 unemployed workers (including all the seasonal workers) will take part in the learnership. The benefits to Louisville includes the following:

• Louisvale will have access to a pool of suitably qualified group of employees.
• Sixteen unemployed employees will provide labour to Louisvale for a period of 21 to 30 weeks.
• Louisvale is not paying anything for the labour of the 16 learners.
• PAETA will be paying the learners an allowance of R130-00 a week.
• Louisvale will have no burden of administration or managing the project.
• ISIBANE Skills Development & Solutions/DAMELIN College has been appointed to manage the project.
• The training services of ISIBANE & DAMELIN will be carried by PAETA.

2. Skills programmes.
Skills programmes is short courses such as pruning, soil ecology and wine tasting that leads to formal qualification

RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER PROJECTS
Louisvale is an wine export farm and is therefore obliged adhere to numereous trade regulations codes of good practices, health, hygiene & Safety regulations and all the provisions of South African Labour Law. Louisvale in terms of SEA. Labour Law must implement the provisions of the following Acts:

• Basic Conditions of Employment Act.
• Occupational Health & Safety Act.
• Labour Relations Act.
• Extension of Tenure Security Act.
• Skills Development Act etc.

Louisvale is also a member of the Wine Industry Ethical Trade Association, is in the process of meeting the demands of Eurogap and other quality assurance iniatives. All these demands are extremely expensive to implement and to maintain. This Project will cut the cost of the above drastically..

BENEFITS FOR LEARNERS
• Unemployed learners get a weekly allowance.
• It increases self-confidence and motivation.
• Increases job satisfaction.
• Learners receive a National Certificate

BENEFITS FOR EMPLOYERS
Training is vital to development and management of bussiness resources. Properly selecte and eduquatelly employees at levels help a bussiness to reach its goals, through optimum performance levels, achieved through effective training methods

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