Learnerships, apprenticeships and internships

The learnership agreement and the learner’s employment contract

A learnership is not a job with a training budget. It is a statutory, three-party agreement under the Skills Development Act between the learner, you as employer, and a skills development provider accredited by the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO). It must be on the prescribed form and registered with the relevant Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA). Each party takes on fixed obligations: you employ the learner for the agreed period, give the practical experience and release the learner to attend training; the learner works and attends; the provider trains and supports.

Note the wording: the provider must be accredited by the QCTO. Older templates still say “SETA-accredited training provider”, which reflects the Act before its 2008 amendment. The SETA registers the agreement; it no longer accredits the provider.

Two things follow that catch employers out. First, if the learner was not already your employee, you must sign a separate contract of employment with them (s 18(2)). The learnership agreement is not itself the employment contract. That employment contract runs for the learnership period and ends when the period ends (s 18(6)); if the learner was already on your staff, the existing contract is untouched (s 18(1)). Second, because a learner’s fixed term is one that a statute permits, the three-month fixed-term rule does not apply to it (LRA s 198B(2)(c)).

The other trap is termination. You cannot end a learnership early because business is slow or the learner is not what you hoped. The Act allows only three exits before the period runs out.

So the routes are: the learner completes early; the SETA that registered the agreement approves the termination; or the learner is fairly dismissed for misconduct or incapacity, with the same procedure you would follow for any employee under the 2025 Dismissal Code (see the permanent employment contract). A retrenchment is not on the list. If you are not confident you can carry the learner for the full period, do not sign. The learnership agreement explainer covers the clauses in the prescribed form.

Allowances, the minimum wage and the tax incentive

A learner is paid an allowance rather than the ordinary national minimum wage. Schedule 1 of the National Minimum Wage Act carves learners out of the R30,23 an hour rate and sends them to Schedule 2, which sets a minimum weekly allowance by NQF level and by the credits the learner has already earned.

The figures are weekly minimums; you may pay more, and many employers do. The four-hour minimum for short days still applies (BCEA s 9A), as do the payslip and deduction rules. Paying a “stipend” below the applicable row is a breach of the National Minimum Wage Act, not a discount.

The incentive on the other side is section 12H of the Income Tax Act: an annual allowance of R40 000 for a learner on an NQF level 1–6 learnership and R20 000 for levels 7–10, pro-rated for part years, plus a completion allowance of the same amount when the learner finishes. Both require a learnership registered under the Skills Development Act and — on the current wording — an agreement entered into before 1 April 2027. Agreements of 24 months or longer earn the completion allowance for each full twelve-month period. Get the SETA registration done promptly; an unregistered agreement earns nothing.

Figures last reviewed 9 September 2026.

Apprenticeships

An apprenticeship is not a different animal. In the Skills Development Act it is simply a learnership in a listed trade — a trade the Minister has published by notice in the Gazette — and it ends with a trade test. Everything above applies: the three-party agreement, SETA registration, the separate employment contract, the locked termination and the Schedule 2 allowance. The difference is the qualification at the end, which is certification as an artisan and entry on the national register of artisans.

If you took over an apprentice under a contract signed before the current regime, the Act’s transitional provisions deem the apprentice a learner and require a written employment contract alongside the old apprenticeship contract. Do not assume the old paperwork is enough.

Internships: there is no statute, so the ordinary rules apply

No South African Act defines an internship. That absence is the whole point: an intern is whatever the facts make them, and the facts usually make them an employee. Two Acts decide the money and the status.

The National Minimum Wage Act applies to every “worker”, a term wider than “employee”: anyone who works for another and is entitled to any payment for it, in money or in kind. A stipend of any size makes the intern a worker, and a worker must be paid at least R30,23 an hour for ordinary hours.

The second Act is the Labour Relations Act. A paid intern who earns up to R269 600,90 a year is presumed to be an employee if any one of the section 200A factors is present — and an intern almost always works under your direction, on your hours, as part of your organisation. That means unfair-dismissal protection, leave and the rest. Calling the person an intern does not change what they are; the courts have said for decades that the name the parties choose does not decide the relationship.

Put that reason in the offer letter, fix the end date, describe the training the intern will receive, and pay at least the minimum wage. If the intern is to be paid nothing, be certain they are a volunteer in the Act’s sense, and write the agreement as a volunteer agreement, not an employment contract. The which-contract tool routes the common cases.

Frequently asked questions