Access to formal education and training institutions is constrained and needs to be expanded, Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande said on Thursday.

Enrolments at Further Education and Training (FET) colleges in particular needed to increase if South Africa was to come close to meeting the need for mid-level skills and the demand from youth for increased training opportunities.

"While we are mindful of the need to maintain and improve the quality of education and training we must also be bold in expanding enrolments, and thus opportunities, while not compromising quality," he said in a speech prepared for deliver at the National Skills Summit in Pretoria.

"South Africa now suffers from the twin scourges of high unemployment and a shortage of critical skills needed to drive economic growth and social development."

Nzimande said the skills shortage was one of the reasons that the government faced challenges to service delivery, the expansion of decent work and social justice.

He said the skills summit would focus on issues that arose in the performance agreement which he signed with President Jacob Zuma last week.

These issues included establishing credible institutional mechanisms for skills planning; increasing access to tertiary education for those not eligible for post-school programmes, apprenticeships, and high level skills in engineering, animal and health sciences, physical and life sciences and teaching; and research, development and innovation in human capital.

The minister said the skills challenge needed to be tackled using universities, universities of technology, colleges and Sector Education Training Authorities (Seta).

There had to be improved synergy and closer working relationships among these institutions, he said.

In six months, the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS) III would be implemented to guide sector planning in the next five years, said Nzimande.

The NSDS III proposed a new programme called PIVOT which provided for increased numbers and relevance of academic, professional and vocational education that met the critical needs for economic growth and social development.

"These programmes generally combine course work at universities, universities of technology and colleges with structured learning at work, he said.

"This is achieved by means of professional placements, work-integrated learning, apprenticeships, learnerships, internships and the like."

The new Seta landscape would be licensed next year and would provide stability and "new vigour" to the education and training and would be aimed at skills development in sectors were it was needed, he said.