Archive of News

Skills development is a major part of the revised BBBEE Codes of Good Practice

The revised codes were recently adopted and are scheduled to take effect in October 2014. Skills development is one of the code’s three priorities. According to the proposed changes, if you don’t meet the sub-minimum criteria – for skills development, this is 40% - in the code’s three priorities, your company will fall one level on your BBEEE scorecard.

The new scorecard, which governs the acquisition and application of BBBEE status levels, provides for 20 point revised weighting linked to skills development.
 
The general principles of skills development are, among others, to:
 

• Allow entities to contribute to achieving South Africa’s economic growth and social development goals by developing skills that will contribute to the economy,
• Promote an industrial skills base in critical production and value-added manufacturing sectors, and
• Strengthen the skills and HR base by encouraging skills development initiatives with an emphasis on developing working people’s career paths to support employment creation.

In terms of the scoring requirements for skills development, the amended codes allow for:

• A 6% weighting for (or eight points equivalent to) skills development spend on learning programmes for black people as a percent of leviable payroll,
• 0.3% or four points on skill development spend on black disabled employees,
• 2.5% or four points on the number of black people participating in learnerships, apprenticeships and internships as a percentage of total employees,
• 2.5% or four points on the number of unemployed black people on learnerships, apprenticeships and internships as a percentage of all employees, and
• 100% or five points for the number of people absorbed by the industry after the learnership.

Richard Rayne, managing director of iLearn, says that as an established operator within the technology-driven digital education space, the company has kept a close eye on BBEEE developments. He suggests that the stringent scoring criteria reaffirms the level of importance attached to skills development.