Black people from previously underprivileged individuals make up only 11% of SA’s aviation industry licenses. This, drilled down, would reflect an even lower percentage for women in South Africa. Collectively, meaningful contributions and resources should be prioritised towards changing this transformation anomaly.
As a public entity, TETA reports directly to the Minister of Higher Education and Training and operates under the oversight of the National Treasury and the Auditor General of South Africa. TransformSA spoke to Kgatile Nkala, who holds the executive position in corporate services. She oversees human resources, marketing, and communication. She ensures that TETA employs the right people who will lead the vision of transforming the industry.
“We are one of the 21 SETAs founded under our country’s skills act. We have over nine subsectors that we look after and these are rail, maritime, freight handling, road passenger, road freight, aviation, taxi and forwarding and clearing. All these emanate from the four most published modes of transport in South Africa, which are; Air, Sea, Rail and Road,” explained Nkala.
Nkala said transport is still the least gender-transformed sector in South Africa. ” As far as demographics are concerned, the transport industry is still white-dominated. At least 73% of truck drivers are black, and pilots are still predominantly white. Then, you’ll find that we have an aging workforce in the sector. That’s because of the slow absorption of the youth into the job market. If you look around, we don’t have a lot of young pilots. We don’t have young train drivers or engineers,” said Nkala.
“Transformation is slow. Remember, it is a partnership. The results can only be seen when the partnership works. We are saying it is slow because of many inputs and facets that make the relationship work,” she said.
According to Nkala, improving gender diversity and inclusion in transport – particularly the freight sector remains high on the agenda of TETA. With the industry ignoring women for decades, a lot still needs to be done.
“When you see a lot of female train drivers, it’s because of our strategic partnerships with institutions such as PRASA, Transnet and related organisations. These partnerships are geared towards training and recruitment of female train drivers..”
“Regarding truck drivers, we also partner with road freight and other truckers associations to provide the necessary funding and enable training and absorption of women. It is imperative that we look at the policy regime and poke those areas prohibiting women from participating fully in these industries,” she added.
She further cited Volvo Trucks that has launched a programme in partnership with TETA to increase women drivers in South Africa as one of the groundbreaking initiatives testament to the inroads TETA is advancing to address the scarcity of women in the trucking businesses.
“We work with aviation. We support airlines in finding young pilots that are females and that come from underprivileged backgrounds. Over the past 3 years TETA has invested more than 24 million rands towards 88 young people to be trained as pilots across South Africa” add Nkala.
TransformSA is well informed that TETA bursaries are advertised annually between July and August. Post school qualifications and occupations supported by the SETA will indeed mitigate the risk of future unemployment by ensuring that young people are funded for specific programmes aligned to skills needed in the industry.
