BURSARIES AND WORKINTEGRATED LEARNING PROGRAMMES

The objective of the BANKSETA’s Work Integrated Learning (WIL) and Bursary Department is to address the shortage of scarce and critical skills in South Africa. This contributes to BANKSETA’s overall objective of providing a competent cohort of skilled employees for the banking and alternative banking sector.

This objective is achieved through a multi-faceted approach. Firstly, public institutions of learning are engaged to respond to the needs of the banking and alternative sector. Secondly, WIL aims to bridge the gap between the requirements of the industry for employees with specific skills on the one hand, and the supply of such skills by current workers and new entrants into the economy on the other. Thirdly, bursaries are provided through partnerships with universities. Our support is holistic, covering tuition, textbooks, and accommodation, and is renewable annually depending on the students’ academic progress.

Successes include the number of learners who obtained BANKSETA funded bursaries for the past few years who have graduated from higher education institutions in 2022. The increase in numbers is an indication of the programme’s success, especially as most of the students are from disadvantaged backgrounds, with two-thirds of them being women. The focus areas for BANKSETA are actuarial science (accounting), bachelors of science (IT) and commerce (IT and finance, economics, financial markets or financial modelling and accounting).

To underscore the significance of the SETA’s contribution, the skills development fraternity, of the University of Pretoria enrolled students who were funded in the last academic year, fourteen have completed their BCom Informatics degrees, and eight have completed the honours programme in that discipline. The labour market will therefore benefit from a group of highly skilled graduates from a quality programme such as that offered bythe BANKSETA. Training in these skills is a high priority as there is great demand for skilled professionals who also have comprehensive information technology (IT) skills.

In respect of partnerships with various institutions of learning for the WIL programmes. We have long lasting partnerships with TVET colleges, with universities of technology as well as the Universities. A highlight of the year was the pass rate of 70% of students from the Vaal University of Technology, a good achievement given the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Of the 129 out of 188 students who will graduate, 52 learners have already found employment in the sector and will bring their newfound skills to bear for their employers.

The digitisation programme for people with disabilities was implemented in five provinces, with 249 learners with aptitudes for digital marketing, cloud computing empower the youth with relevant digital skills that are suitable for the broader banking sector. The programme will be implemented in all provinces to benefit 350 unemployed post matric learners with disabilities. Work-readiness and entrepreneurial components will be included.