south africa's scarce and critical skills

South Africa’s Skills Crisis

Gill Connellan

Chairperson

Are We Getting the Skills Development Deserve?

• 17% of school leavers achieved the standard necessary to proceed to university.

• 50% passed but did not qualify to proceed to university.

• 33% failed matric.

• 535 000 young people left school between the end of 2005 and 2007 with no “passing” certificate and into a very uncertain future.

• The majority of these will join the ranks of the unemployed — young people between the ages of 20 and 24 comprise 14% of the labour force.

• They are over-represented (27%) in the unemployed. • 7,2 million illiterate people in South Africa.


• Prognosis for the “matric” classes of 2010 and 2011 is not much better.

• Class of 2010 (Now Grade 10) – in 2001 (then Grade 3)

– 30% did not have required standard of numeracy– 54% did not have the required standard of literacy

• Class of 2011(Now Grade 9) – in 2005 (then Grade 6)– 72% did not have the required standard of numeracy– 62% did not have the required standard of literacy


• New single education system has not resolved the problem– 1 in 10 white children achieved an “A” aggregate– 1 in 1000 black children achieved an “A” aggregate– 66% of higher-grade maths passes – by 7% of the

schools– 0,6% of these are in historically African schools.

Based on a national survey of performance by Dept. Education

How Our School System is Contributing to the National Skills Crisis?

• We have not allowed enough time and have been apathetic to gaining consensus to sustainable change in our education system.

• We have tried to apply one size fits all teaching remedies to save time and energy, where differentiated teaching approaches are required.

• Not enough differentiation between the needs of different schools and their states of readiness to implement change.

• We have not paid nearly enough attention to sorting out our fundamental numeracy and literacy issues.

• Our language of learning and teaching is seriously flawed.

How Our School System is Contributing to the National Skills Crisis?

• There are many challenges relating to material and other resources and not investment has gone into these issues.

• Leadership and teaching staff have not been developed sufficiently, (especially at school and regional levels).

• We have not identified appropriate social support mechanisms (although not for lack of trying).

• The urban areas are lacking a community support base.

• Planning has been poor (largely reactive).

State of Skills 2006 - 2007

Reviews the proposed interventions of the Joint Initiativeon Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) in relation to threepriority fields:

• Unemployed graduates• Engineers • Artisans

Formal launch of the Joint Initiative in Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) - 27 March 2006.

A clear signal from government that skills development is now a number one priority in government’s effort to stimulate economic growth and reduce poverty and inequality.

Purpose of the National Scarce Skills List

• A set of indicators for skills development interventions.

• A set of indicators for course development and career guidance that should be provided to learners and communities, including schools, FET, Colleges, Universities, Universities of Technology and learners across these institutions.

• A basis for establishing the Work Permit Quota List and for evaluating employer-sponsored applications for work permits.

• Begins to provide a platform for targeted interventions and mechanisms to monitor and evaluate both the success and impact of measures aimed at redressing particular scarcities.

State of Skills 2006 - 200711 major ‘families’ of occupation experiencing shortages of skilled people -

1. Engineering and built environment professions.2. Health professions.3. Finance professions.4. Law professions.5. City planners.6. IT/ICT professions.7. Natural science professions.8. Management professions.9. Education professions.10. Transport professions.11. Artisans.

Important Observations on the National Scarce Skills List

• Primarily the professions (including managerial positions) which are facing the largest magnitude of scarcity.

• ‘Skills acquisition challenge is not a numbers challenge: it is a systems challenge’ -

JIPSA

A system malfunction characterised by bottlenecks and logjams which have slowed the production of the required amounts of skilled personnel needed in the skills pipeline from education and training into the labour market.


• Imperative that we address the – systems blockages and inefficiencies and the – quality problems that impede the acquisition of

relevant, high quality skills to sustain growth over the medium to longer term.

• A major issue is the ageing, retirement or emigration of the skilled workforce, and the supply (and on-the-job mentoring) of younger artisans, technicians and engineers to replace them.


The skills pipeline can usefully be analysed in terms of:• The outputs of the school system

• The training pathways from the school system into the public as well as the private further and higher education systems

• Wastage, particularly with regard to throughput and attrition rates

• Systems coordination and cooperation

• Institutional capacity

• Quality assurance

• Measurement, monitoring and reporting (JIPSA, 2006e: 5).

Unemployed graduates

Universities

First- timeundergraduatesin 2000

Dropped outby 2004%

Graduated by2004%

Notcompleted by2004%

University total

38 407 38 50 12

Technikon Total

43 484 58 32 10

Distance Education Total

37 798 71 9 20

Source: The Minister of Education released these figures in a written answer to a question in Parliament, September 2006.


A huge drop-out factor prevalent –

• 38% of university students• 58% of technikon students • 71% distance education students

leaving these institutions in the period 2000-2004.


The actual unemployment rate for this group has increased by half,from 6.6% to 9.7%, which represents the largest relative change for alleducation groups.

A disturbing finding is the -• High levels of unemployment among graduates with certificates and

diplomas in scarce skill areas such as business, commerce, management and the natural sciences.

• Perceived poor quality of tuition at historically disadvantaged higher

education institutions. • Poor labour market value of diploma and certificate courses obtained

from FET Colleges, the former technikons and many private institutions offering these qualifications.

• Absence of opportunities for work placement, and poor career guidance at school (DPRU, 2006: 19-20).


• Significant inefficiencies as South African learners move through higher education.

• Inadequate academic preparation

• Financial difficulties

• Lack of exposure to work experience

• Receiving tuition in a language other than the home language

• HIV and Aids


Decline of work placements for University of Technology students

• Without work placements students are unable to graduate, although they may have passed all the theoretical requirements of the academic programme.

• Industries are no longer interested in taking qualified students for work placement.

• Industries rather take in unemployed or lower-skilled people on a learnership because of the payment they receive from the relevant SETA.

• The fact that 5 300 of the 8 560 students are in the engineering sciences – a major scarce skill area - represents a serious wastage of human resources desperately required by the country’s growing economy.


• Even at some of our most advanced universities in South Africa, the yield in minimum time is quite low <30%

• Universities in India, Tanzania and Kenya - average

yield in minimum time is closer to 90% and 95% of students graduate.

• These students are subject to the same criteria of international accreditation as South African students.

• These institutions also have less than a quarter of the resources going to South African institutions.


• Dramatic decline in the number of new apprentices indentured since 1991 when the total number peaked at 10 758.

• The total number of final year apprentices qualifying as artisans was at its highest in 1986 at 11 769

• Subsequently shrunk to 3 960 prior to the advent of the new government and its new training policies.

• JIPSA’s proposal on artisans is to increase training output to 50 000 over the period 2007-2010 - translating into 12 500 artisans per annum, or an additional 7 500 new artisans each year.

The ‘skills crisis’ can be understood in three differing

ways: • A numeric shortage within a particular

occupation or profession.

• An ‘experience’ crisis rather than a ‘skills’ crisis.

• Systemic bottleneck constraining the workings of the skills pipeline.

Solutions Are Not Simple

• Maths and science scores amongst the lowest on the World Competitiveness Scale.

• The Growing Association of unemployed graduates is becoming increasingly unemployable.

• What we have is the raw materials for the greatest system in the world.

• Our national human resources strategy is the best in the world, along with all the elements of the strategy – NQF, SAQA etc.

The New Developments inthe skills landscape

For the first time in South African educational and training history, we now have a potential framework that has the possibility of creating intellectual parity across all knowledge & learning areas whether this happens in formal educational institutions, structured and/or unstructured workplace learning and other informal learning environments.

Prof. Merlyn Mehl – 3LAcademy


• The revolutionary nature of the new architecture involves the establishment of a Quality Council for Trades and Occupations.

• Situated within the Department of Labour

• Operating across all 10 levels of the NQF

• Working in synergy with the Department of Education through the Council on Higher Education (CHE) and Umalusi.

The New Developments in the skills landscape

• The Position and Authority of the SETAs. • Strengthening workplace training provision.• The legislative and policy framework.• Key considerations for 2nd economy for

skills development. • Ongoing and sustainable funding

mechanisms.• Cooperation between the various delivery

agencies.


• Accommodating Different Kinds of Learning• Revised national qualifications framework• Across different kinds of contexts• Challenges Facing the QCTO

1. Philosophical

2. Structural

3. The Design of the QCTO

4. The Organising Framework for Occupations

5. The Need for High Level Qualifications


PROFESSIONALS perform analytical, conceptual and creative tasks through the application of theoretical knowledge and experience in the fields of the arts, media, business, design, engineering, physical and life sciences, transport, education, health, information and communication technology, the law,

social science and social welfare

What we Propose• 3 occupational profiles

– Skills development administrator– Skills development practitioner– Skills development strategist???

• 5 levels of professional registration– Technician – Associate – Practitioner – Chartered – Master

• 3 categories– HRD/OD internal with core skills development– HRD/OD business consultant (skills development)– Marginal skills development facilitator (non-core)

What we Propose

OFO ASDFSAProfessional body

NQFlevel

OFOSkill level

AdministratorTechnician 4 3 / 4

Associate 5 / 6 3 / 4

PractitionerPractitioner 7 4 / 5

Chartered 8 / 9 5

Strategist Master9 / 10

5

Final Considerations

• The skills crisis is over. The skills catastrophe has begun. It stopped being a crisis when we started arguing about whether we had a crisis.

• We’re still talking about skills development and training: we’re not doing it.

• The biggest challenges we face are overcoming our apathy. • We’re living and working in a global economy.

• The danger exists that companies will again abrogate their own training responsibilities and leave it up to government to resurrect Indlela and other similar facilities, simply poaching the graduates.

Contact us at (021) 685 0451

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Questions?

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south africa's scarce and critical skills

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skills development

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