Nearly two and a half million young South Africans are currently out of work and not in school. That is both a social and economic brake on South Africa’s development.
Some skills shortages are worse than others of course — read this SABC article on primary school teachers struggling with basic literacy.
In an effort to remedy this, Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande unveiled the third National Skills and Development Strategy (NSDS III) earlier this year. It looks like a lot of the same, but with a few notable improvements.
This new strategy makes substantive changes in the way Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) are monitored and evaluated, (to rebuff critiques that many SETAs were fly-by-night operations for quite some time) and also attempts to align skills development more closely with economic and employment needs. Currently, the majority of skills development for South African youth is undertaken at the university level. This neither reaches a sufficient number or people, nor seeds the South African economy with the right types of skills.
What are the right types of skills? Minister Nzimande is glad you asked. The NSDS III makes a provision for research that analyzes the market demand for skills. In Dr. Nzimande’s press release, he notes that — “There is currently no institutional mechanism that provides credible information and analysis with regard to the supply and demand for skills”.
That might be true — but there is a lot of educated guess work, and the numbers are staggering.
For example; the South African economy supposedly needs approximately 22,000 chartered accountants, and 13,000 engineers. However, the statistics for high end jobs such as engineers and accountants can be misleading.
As noted by the New Age, for each engineer or accountant, you need three support staff. And then you need many skilled artisans to actually erect the projects once the engineers and accountants have argued over the specs. Thus the skills shortage is far greater at the middle and lower rungs than at the top of the South African economy. Anecdotally, students at South Africa’s technical colleges are often convinced to leave before graduating because employers offer high salaries for immediate openings.
Addressing this imbalance will require far greater coordination among SETAs, Further Education and Training Centers (FETs), employers, and private skills development organizations.
Currently, Dr. Nzimande is under fire for allegedly over stepping his authority by unilaterally appointing 21 SETA chairpersons. Hopefully the spotlight will focus attention on the urgent need to implement the NSDS III effectively, and get on with the crucial work of optimizing the South African workforce to drive job creation.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
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Minister Nzimande is absolutely right! South Africa, a country rich in technical and industrial capabilities coupled with natural and cultural resources, is lagging far behind in its responsibilities to implement sustainable job creation and training. However, it is incorrect that "there is currently no institutional mechanism that provides credible information and analysis with regard to the supply and demand for skills”. I, for a fact, know of one organization doing exactly that in a sector that so desperately needs that sort of intervention.
ReplyDeleteThe Timbali Technology Incubator is a DTI-funded agribusiness incubator model working in the northeastern provinces and is making a tremendous impact. In rural South Africa, the overwhelming majority of the population works in agriculture. Over the past several years, the number of farms in that region has diminished significantly as small-scale farmers struggle to compete with larger, plantation-style operations. Timbali addresses these issues, provides rural farmers with technical training, business development skills, and market access (supplying their franchise-model brand "Amablom" with cut flowers, and "Amafruit" and Amaveg" with fresh fruits and vegetables. Timbali manages the entire value-chain, and provides much needed value-addition to ensure competitive market access.
That's all very exciting, and Timbali is most certainly one of the best incubator models in Africa. However, what's most exciting is the additional support they provide to their farmer clients. Timbali works hard to make sure that every single SME client graduates with not only the skills needed for sustainable success and the market access to generate substantial income, but they also ensure that each graduate with an established line of credit from the region's financial institution, as well as established accounts with each of the value-chain suppliers (fertilizer, packaging, etc). That is unusual, and fills what is perhaps the greatest gap for South African SME's...credit!
So, while I do agree that there is much work to be done in the areas of job creation and technical training, I want to applaud the efforts of our African agribusiness incubators; especially Timbali. Hopefully the rest of the development world will realize that agribusiness incubation is the only proven method of technical interventions for sustainable agribusiness development.
That was a great post Jim-
ReplyDeleteSome more info on the Timbali Incubator
http://www.timbali.co.za/NewsLTR/Timbali%20February%202011%20Newsletter%20signed%20off%20by%20Management%202%20March%202011.pdf