The Deputy President and Chairperson of the Human Resource Development Council
Honourable Cabinet colleagues
Members of the Council representing: Business Unity South Africa organised labour, relevant government ministries, academia, research organisations, higher education institutions, the skills sector, the development sector, professional bodies, and the youth
Guests, ladies and gentlemen
It is indeed a pleasure to be able to address you as minister of the lead department managing the Human Resource Development Council under the leadership of the Presidency, in particular the Deputy President. The Deputy President has spoken about why we need this council and why the participation of each of you is important. My task is to address you on why we need an HRD strategy for South Africa.
Today's launch is a significant development in the evolution of the Human Resource Development Strategy which was first approved in 2001. The development of human potential is a priority for South Africa
The envisaged development and growth path for South Africa requires the participation of all South Africans in economic activity. Our policy levers to achieve faster growth, higher employment and reduced levels of poverty include skills development to support labour intensive industries, infrastructure investment and rural development. Quality education is needed in early childhood education, through the years of schooling and in post-school education and training if we are to achieve all of our goals.
Background: A legacy of deliberate under-development of South Africans
In 1994, South Africa inherited the outcomes of a deliberate policy of under-development of our people. In fact the neglect went back 342 years from Dutch and British colonialism to apartheid. Prior to 1994, the liberation movement had developed a number of policies, namely the policy framework for the reconstruction and development programme and education for all, the framework for the creation of the education and training landscape. These frameworks were quickly followed up with white papers in education, skills and training, science and technology, soon after the 1994 elections. The African National Congress and its allies then ensured that the necessary legislation for the integration of education and training and the development of human resources were in place. We now have a raft of legislation dealing with education, training and skills development as well as science and technology.
This legislation enabled us as a nation to make tremendous progress in doing away with racially segregated education institutions and increasing access to education, training and skills. However we still face major challenges, obstacles and problems with regard to success, relevance and responsiveness in education and training. We still have major challenges in improving quality of education and educational outcomes. Most importantly the education and training sectors need to be integrated to function as a single system.
The legacy continues to impact on our country
What we know from our 15 years of experience of education transformation is that our patterns of inequality in education quality and outcomes are persistent and resistant to change. Education performance still replicates patterns of poverty and privilege. The patterns of unequal educational outcomes are endlessly repeated through occupational inequalities from one generation to another. Quality improvements across the system are not being achieved on the scale we had wished despite our best efforts. Indeed, we are not meeting the targets we have set ourselves for learner performance in our national systemic reviews of grades three and six, nor does our performance compare favourably with international equivalents not even in the region. Other countries in Southern African Development Community (SADC) with lower Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and less expenditure on education are achieving better education outcomes.
What is the evidence for these claims? Work done by as part of the situational analysis that informed the document that is in Appendix A of your agenda packs, Human Resource Development South Africa (HRDSA) Draft Strategy for Discussion 2010/30 provides the following information:
In the school system:
* Of those learners who completed Grade 9, just fewer than 90 percent reach Grade 10; about three quarters reach Grade 11 and only between 55 and 60 percent reach Grade 12
* Only slightly more than 46 percent of the 1980 to 1984 birth cohort who started Grade 1 eventually reached Grade 12.
These figures represent, in hard economic terms, major systemic inefficiencies and a waste of resources. In human terms, what is happening to young people, their self-esteem, hope and dreams, when they cannot complete basic education? What does this mean for us a society, for the future? The waste of human potential is the greater and more serious failure.
In the higher education system:
* Of the 120 000 undergraduates who entered higher education for the first time in 2000
* 30 percent dropped out at the end of their first year of study
* Half of the cohort dropped out before completing their degrees
* Only 22 percent of the total cohort graduated at the end of their third or fourth year of study
* The remaining 28 percent were still studying in 2003, but would not qualify in that year.
Again, in economic terms, costly investments in university education are lost. In human terms, these patterns of failure send a dangerous social message. What we are saying to our young people is that even the rare few who initially succeed from the distant villages and from the townships, eventually will fail and remain marginalised.
Innovation, research and development
The situational analysis informs us that we are facing serious challenges to the sustainability of our national intellectual project to sustain research and innovation:
* Only 33 percent of academics have PhDs (this varies across faculties), are actively involved in research activities and can competently guide research students
* The biggest R&D challenge lies in South Africa's aging and shrinking scientific population that will soon retire, leaving a serious continuity gap in key research infrastructure
* While we recognise apartheid's crippling structural, racial and economic ravages, we have yet to increase the number of black and women scientists, technologists and engineers in our academic ranks.
Skills development strategy
In terms of skills development, we face major challenges. If we are to succeed in removing the structural impediments to faster job growth, we must ensure that young and less-skilled workers can access jobs. We must ensure that further education and training programmes provide the real-world skills needed by public and private sector employers. The situational analysis has shown that:
* The learnerships training has been focused on the low-skill National Qualification Framework (NQF) band, which does not fulfil scarce-skills targets
* Since 2000, the annual learnership output was 20 000 to 30 000 per year with these figures declining over the last three years
* The number of individuals writing the trade test is low;
* There is a high failure rate (about 60 percent) among those who take the trade test
* There are major challenges with placement, which impacts negatively on the production of artisans.
Labour market
The fourth component of the intersecting sub-systems comprising the HRD strategy is labour market and employment policies. Again, the situational analysis has shown serious weaknesses which include:
* Skills shortages and mismatches
* Few opportunities for low skilled workers, who are a significant proportion of our society
* Few alternatives for those who do not find employment, i.e. pre-employment programmes
* There is a correlation between educational attainment and labour market prospects
Working together we already have achieved a great deal
Early in 2006, under the leadership of the Presidency and in particular with the support of leaders in the labour federations, in business and civil society, the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) was formed. Through its structures such as the joint task team and the technical working group chaired by Cde Gwede Mantashe and later by Cde Bheki Ntshalintshali and with the assistance of funding from the Business Trust and the project management by national business initiative, a process of identifying and clearing blockages began.
This initiative, albeit an important one, was a short term response to a systemic requirement for a HRD strategy and structures that work. In 2005, Cabinet requested the then Minister of Education to revise the HRD-SA. The reviewed HRD-SA will play a coordination and integration role and will initiate activities and resolve blockages in the system which cannot be solved by sub-systems working in isolation.
At this point we would thus like to express our appreciation to all who contributed to the JIPSA and the JTT especially organised labour, business, community and other institutions. We also need to commend the National Botanical Institute (NBI) under the leadership of Andre Fourie, and the Business Trust under the leadership of Brian Whittaker keeping the fires burning. We will be looking to them for ongoing support. We will continue taking forward the empirical work and studies undertaken by JIPSA but not yet implemented. As the Department of Higher Education and Training we have honoured our commitment to absorb staff members of the JIPSA secretariat who wished to join us.
Government has strengthened its delivery of education and training
Recognising the challenges that we face, the President has created two education departments, Basic Education and Higher Education and Training in order to strengthen delivery. We now have one education and training system, and the two departments will work closely together. This new alignment brings possibilities of the integration of education and training which have eluded us for many years. We now have the possibility of addressing many of the structural and systemic blockages in post-school education and training.
Conclusion
Deputy President, ladies and gentlemen, today we embark on a new journey working with stakeholders in the HRD Council. With the huge pool of knowledge, skills and expertise available in this council, we are confident that we will make tremendous strides in addressing the economic, social and wider development agendas. Working together we will create the mechanisms to support all South Africans to make a meaningful contribution to our developmental agenda.
Finally, I wish to thank the Deputy President for his leadership in being the champion for human resource development in South Africa.
Issued by: Department of Higher Education and Training
30 March 2010
Source: Department of Higher Education and Training (http://www.education.gov.za/)
