Assessment of Integrated Reporting Practices Within Sector Education and Training Authorities in South Africa

Abstract

The paper assessed the extent to which SETAs with SA have adopted key disclosure elements and guiding principles of the IR framework in their published AR. In SA, SETAs operate as statutory organisations with the aim to facilitate and coordinate the development of various skills in line with the NSDS and as part of their reporting system, they collect data relating to their specific learning programmes using a digital platform called SETMIS. This system aims to enhance the reliability and integrity of information data however it does not integrate disclosure requirement and guiding principles guided by IR framework. Therefore, SETAs are encouraged to adopted IR practice to be able to report on both historical data and integrated thinking. The paper adopted qualitative approach using content analysis and scoring systems to assess the degree of disclosure requirement of IR components in SETAs reporting systems. Overall results indicate that SA SETA's reporting systems still focuses on compliance requirements with significant limitation of IR framework application due to low integration of content elements and guiding principles and lack of proper disclosure of their business model and value creation process. The study provides practical implications and suggests SETAs to embrace IR and develop appropriate business models which they can implement to support the value creation process. Moreover, results provide policy implications by providing government entities such as DHET to enforce the adoption of IR by SETA and promote awareness of early adoption of IR by the public sector and apply integrated thinking in their reporting system.