Thomas Mathiba, Chair of the NESPF

Thomas Mathiba, Chair of the NESPF

The Forum appointed a Task Team to follow up on a number of outcomes of the National Environmental Skills Summit (for the report on NESS 2015, click here.) These included strengthening of the Forum, a Green Jobs Action Plan, and further coordinated fundraising to extend the national capacity to do green skills planning and development. The Forum also commented on the National Framework for the Annual Report on Skills Supply and Demand gazetted by DHET on 30 April 2015. Find the submission here.

Further fund raising efforts include a proposal to fund an annual National Environmental Skills Summit, and the extension of occupational and advocacy-based research to ensure that such green jobs are represented on the Organising Framework for Occupations (OFO), and to engage potential employers in the realisation of more green jobs. Should we be able to fund this work, we will invite partners to work with us and identify particular regional contexts for the work, in relation to national priority areas like the SIPS; energy; the blue economy; conservation, tourism and the wildlife economy; and agriculture and food security linked to climate change and water. Linked to this area of work in the proposal would be two other important elements: The potential for developing some of the required skills through curriculum innovation at TVET colleges in relevant regions, and related career guidance. The provisioning of up-to-date and comprehensive information on green careers is seen as a priority, as is integration of this information into the National Career Advice Portal.