Assessment of compliance to the skills development Act in Ratlou MUnicipality, North West Province

Abstract

This study examines compliance to the skills Development Act in Ratlou municipality. This is based on the fact that effective service delivery requires strained and skilled personnel. A simple random sample technique was used to select 45 workers in the municipality. Data were collected with a structured questionnaire developed based on the objectives of the study and analysed using SPSS version 21through frequency counts, percentages, mean and standard deviation. Relationship between variables of the study was examined with correlation test and multiple regression analysis. Majority of the employees are males (60%), below 50 years (64.5%), black (75%) and single (35.6%). In terms of type of dependents, 51% of the respondents had females while at least 51 percent had at least 10 years working experience. About 66 percent of the respondents were Christians while about 84% had tertiary education ranging from a Diploma to Doctoral qualifications. About 46% of the respondents had been in their job category for at least 5 years. With respect to salary ranges, 60% of respondents indicated the salary ranged from R30000 and above. Majority of employees sampled in this study are in the finance directorate within the municipality. Prominent items on the compliance to the skills Development Act as indicated by respondents with compliance is to: develop the skills of the South African workforce (95.6), improve productivity in the workplace and the competitiveness of employers (95.6), and promote self- employment (88.9). The most prominent statement on employees' attitude towards the Skills Development Act as ranked by the employees was as a management function and responsibility, managers address compliance on skills development problem reported urgently(3.73).The most prominent constraints towards implementation of skills development act as ranked by employees were: 1. Lack of recognition of Skills Development Act representatives by their line managers (1.75); 2 Lack of information sharing session and training with staff members on the Skills Development Act (1.84). The most prominent items on knowledge of the Skills Development Act as ranked by employees were: establishing learnerships and approving workplace skills plans (1.75); 3. Allocating grants in the prescribed manner to employees, education and training providers and workers (1.77). The significant determinants of compliance to Skills Development Act are marital status (t=2.69) and job tenure (t = -2.22). Knowledge, religion and job tenure are independent variables which influence employees' attitude towards the Skills Development Act. The results show that there is a significant relationship between compliance to the Skill Development Act by employees and knowledge by employees (r = 0.36, p < 0.05); constraints towards Skill Development Act (r = 0.297, p < 0.05) and knowledge of the Skill Development Act (r = 0.284, p < 0.05).