In the on-going quest to secure the supply of scarce skills for economic growth in South Africa, the Minister for Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande, met with representatives of all key professional bodies in the country on Tuesday, 3 May 2011, in Pretoria.
The meeting sought to get these professional bodies to agree on a common objective, which is to ensure adequate supply of critical skills in the economy. The Minister also shone the spotlight on the strategy the bodies have followed so far, which he found not to be ideal.
Minister Nzimande then opened for discussion his delivery agreement with President Jacob Zuma. According to the agreement, the Department of Higher Education and Training, in partnership with the professional bodies and other stakeholders, must produce the required professionals and develop a skilled and capable workforce to support an inclusive growth path.
Addressing the meeting, Minister Nzimande stressed that the need to develop a skilled and capable workforce is derived principally from a number of underlying problematic issues pertaining to the post-school education system and other structural weaknesses within the South African labour market.
“Firstly, skills deficits and bottlenecks, especially priority and scarce skills, contribute to structural constraints on our growth and developmental path. Secondly, a skilled and capable workforce is critical for decent work, an inclusive economy, labour absorption, rural development, the reduction of inequalities and the need for a more diversified and knowledge intensive economy,” said the Minister.
Touching on cooperation between all partners involved in, and benefiting from education and training in South Africa, Minister Nzimande pointed out that his department has identified a number of activities that need to be undertaken in order to develop the country’s workforce. These include, among others, credible skills planning and the removal of blockages and bottlenecks to the supply of scarce skills.
In its response to Outcome 5 of the Delivery Agreements, the department has agreed on a number of measurable outputs. These include:
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Establishing a mechanism through which information regarding the supply and demand of skills in the country can be communicated in such a manner that it can feed into career guidance information;
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Increasing access to intermediate and higher learning opportunities for youths and adults;
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Increasing access to training opportunities that will boost the number of qualified artisans and mid-level skills available in the labour market; and
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Increasing access, articulation and success in occupationally directed programmes such as engineering, teaching, health sciences and life and physical sciences.
Some of these outputs are relevant in developing a relationship and collaborating with professional bodies in a post school education and training system.
Minister Nzimande also told the meeting he had received reports from certain institutions that students are struggling to graduate due to uncompleted experiential learning. The general impression is that professional bodies are not as directly involved in the practical work experience of students prior to graduation as is expected. It is only after graduation, when students enter internship programmes for professional registration that these bodies become involved.
Compounding the problem, he added, is the fact that public entities are often not accredited institutions where graduates could qualify as professionals. “For example,” he said, “in law and accounting, only private firms are accredited for purposes of professional training and completion of internships. Why is it that government departments and public entities, despite having many of such professionals and professions, are not accredited for purposes of professional training?” He added, “why is it that doctors are trained in public hospitals under proper and professional supervision, yet law students can only be trained through private law firms to be admitted ads attorneys?” The Minister then implored the delegates to re-look at this situation.
Later in the year, the department, the professional bodies and key social partners will come up with a declaration that commits each party to the radical transformation of the sector as a whole. This will entail getting the whole industry players to acknowledge the developmental objectives of the department.
Enquiries:
Nqaba Nqandela
Chief of Staff
Ministry of Higher Education and Training
Tel: 012 312 5555 or 021 465 5513
Cell: 079 693 6829
E-mail: Nqandela.N@dhet.gov.za
