Amendments to the Employment Equity Act

Dear colleagues

As President Cyril Ramaphosa proclaimed, the amendments to the Employment Equity Act (EEA) of 1998 came into effect on 1 January 2025. These translate into the Employment Equity Amendment Act of 2022. Regulations emanating from the Act were published on 15 April 2025.

In light of the above and to ensure compliance with the relevant legislation, the University of Cape Town is required to:

• Review the current EE plan and numerical targets to ensure alignment with the sectoral targets, ensuring institutional targets are realistic.
• Conduct the EE barrier analysis as part of the new EE plan.
• Secure institutional approval of the EE plan for submission to the Department of Employment and Labour before 1 September 2025.

This plan will run for five years, starting on 1 September 2025 until 31 August 2030.

We are also in the process of reviewing the guidance note to ensure alignment with the amendments and the regulations. These improvements will provide greater clarity and accountability in the implementation of our university Employment Equity Plan and in meeting our statutory obligations in terms of the Employment Equity Amendment Act of 2022.

As part of this planning process, we are required to ensure that staff member information is accurate and up to date. This will be achieved by:

1. Requesting all staff members, where necessary, to review and update their profiles via the new EEA1 form. Further communication regarding the planned EEA1 drive will be communicated in due course. The demographic information staff are requested to review for this purpose includes their gender, ethnic origin, (dis)ability status and citizenship.
2. Conducting a barrier analysis to identify obstacles to employment equity across the university. This will be conducted by Maserumule Consulting Corporate Law. Information that staff provide for the barrier analysis will only be accessible by Maserumule and will be treated as confidential.
   • Complete the survey.

As part of our commitment to ensuring that all staff have the opportunity to participate meaningfully in this process, we are incorporating in-person sessions into our planning. These sessions will provide staff who might not have access to online facilities readily available, the opportunity to complete the questionnaire in their preferred language – English, Afrikaans or isiXhosa. We have set aside the period of 19 to 24 June 2025 to host these sessions. Each session will be approximately 90 minutes per group. Following the barrier analysis questionnaire sessions, we are planning to hold focus group sessions with staff during the week of 7 July 2025. Further details regarding the format and venue of these sessions will be shared with staff in due course.

3. The consultation to set targets for our new EE plan will commence in June 2025 with the different faculties and departments. This is being conducted by BlackSwan Empowerment.

Our proposed plan will be submitted to the Employment Equity Forum, Institutional Forum, University Human Resources Committee and, from there, to the university Council for approval.

Please note that in order to ensure that all staff have equitable access to the content in line with the university’s commitment to inclusivity and accessibility, colleagues who require the document in an accessible format compatible with screen readers are kindly advised to contact the Disability Service for assistance.

Thank you, in advance, for your participation in this process, and for your continuing commitment to transformation at our university.

Sincerely

Professor Elelwani Ramugondo
Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Transformation, Student Affairs and Social Responsiveness

Read previous communications:

• From the UCT Executive
• Campus Announcements