Programme director
Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Witwatersrand, Professor Loyiso Nongxa
Director of the Wits Education Policy Unit, Professor Peliwe Lolwana
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It is a great honour for me to be invited to speak at this special occasion marking the launch of the Research into Education and Labour (REAL) market programme. This is indeed an important programme, and I would like to commend the University of Witwatersrand, and in particular, the Wits Education Policy Unit for developing this research programme. Under the guidance and leadership of Dr Lolwana this programme will benefit from her insight given her experience at UMALUSI and research work.
Programmes such as this one are long overdue given the importance of creating linkages between education outputs and the labour market. These two areas of work are intractably related and should be seen as linked.
Our new Department of Higher Education and Training, focusing on post-school education and training, provides an important backdrop for a research programme of this nature. For the first time, one department is focusing on the labour market responsiveness of the post-schooling education system, as well as the links between the workplace, education institutions and access to knowledge and skills for work and life. While the development of our post-schooling education system must not alone be focused on the narrow concerns of labour market supply and demand, it cannot happen in isolation from the economic and social realities that inform our national skills needs.
The creation of this department provides us with an important driving force for better research and analysis on labour education linkages, and the establishment of this research programme is therefore appropriately timed. As I indicated in the departmental strategic plan “Never before in the history of our democracy have we been better positioned to advance the vision of a truly comprehensive and differentiated post-school system, which is capable of contributing to the live of individuals, to the economy, and to broader society.”
Some of the questions that arise are:
- What kind of education and training do we need to address the crisis in South Africa of extraordinarily high numbers of (particularly) young people out of work, out of education, out of training, and without any significant capacity for entering the labour market, or for entrepreneurship?
- How do we plan in such a way that the needs of the labour market are understood by the feeder education and training system?
- How do we plan education so that it meets the needs of the labour market while simultaneously enriches capacity and the intellectual development of individuals?
- What information do we need in order to make such planning possible?
I have emphasised the point about the importance of broader life capacity and intellectual development, because generally in academic research and in the world of politics, there is a tendency to highlight the importance of the economy over and above the interests of intellectual capacity development. Crudely put, this is the distinction between “human capital” and “human capacity” development. As such, there is a gradual move by education systems around the world to streamline subjects and coursework to match the perceived requirements of the labour market. We have for example seen the devaluing of important humanities fields such as philosophy, languages, history, and others beginning to suffer, despite their powerful educational value.
In describing what he called “instrumental rationality”, Wally Morrow quoted Gandhi from his writings on education, and in context of Morrow’s views on “Cultivating humanity in the contemporary world”.
“The real difficulty is the people have no idea of what education truly is. We assess the value of education in the same manner as we assess the value of land or of shares in the stock-exchange market. We want to provide only such education as would enable the student to earn more. We hardly give any thought to the improvement of character of the educated. The girls, we say, do not have to earn, so why should they be educated. As long as such ideas persist there is no hope of our ever knowing the true value of education.”
Therefore, Chairperson, my input on the interdependence of education and labour market should be viewed broadly.
Back to instrumental rationality however, it must be understood that nowadays education policy must be informed by research-led evidence. The planning of the post-school education system at a macro level requires credible empirical data, specifically on the economy and generally on the labour market requirements. With as accurate as possible labour market analysis and forecasting, we will be able to identify needs, and thus know where the system needs strengthening. As part of my performance agreement with the President, focused on “A skilled and capable workforce to promote an inclusive growth path”, we have noted skills planning and understanding skills needs, as a major area of focus for the new department. One of my outputs under this agreement is to develop a skills intelligence system, It is therefore important for my department to engage with research programmes such as this, to identify research priorities in partnership and ensure that as policy-makers we are truly engaged with the latest research in this area.
Institutions of higher learning and universities in particular play a critical role in analysis of education and the labour market, planning; policy-making and policy review. Alongisde the autonomous pursuit of new knowledge, engaged universities are accountable to society, the state and the labour market, and must to a certain extent, be responsive to the demands of a global knowledge-based economy. Universities are expected to supply the necessary skills and expertise for a knowledge economy. Again, this does not negate the necessity and importance of ‘blue sky’ research.
Without adequate higher education and research institutions providing a critical mass of skilled and educated personnel, no country can guarantee genuine endogenous and sustainable development. In particular, developing countries cannot reduce the gap separating them from the developed without significant investment in higher education of all types.
I am pleased that the Research into Education and Labour market programme is built on this fundamental imperative to create an interface between education and the economy. The programme, I understand, seeks to pull together existing and ongoing research activities at universities throughout the country, to generate and maximise insights into the relationships between education and the labour market. This is commendable and it indeed, dovetails with what we have been saying as department – that our institutions should explore opportunities to create or strengthen collaborations with one another especially on areas or programmes of common interest, in order to share expertise and the limited resources.
We need to pull together as the sector to address the skills deficits and bottlenecks which continue to hamper the country’s economic growth.
South Africa suffers from serious challenges of high unemployment and a shortage of critical skills needed to drive economic growth and social development. The skills shortage underpins many of the challenges government faces with regard to service delivery, the expansion of decent work and social justice. There is both anecdotal and empirical evidence of skills shortages in a number of occupations and economic sectors within South Africa. It is clear that there is a tangible problem arising from the mismatch between the supply and demand for skills in the South African labour market.
At a recent Cabinet meeting we endorsed a “New Growth Path”, which sets a target of five million jobs in the next five years. The Cabinet statement also made it clear that “this employment target can only be achieved if the social partners (in our case institutions of higher learning) and government work together to address key structural challenges in the economy”, and one of these challenges that is most relevant to us is “bottlenecks and backlogs in logistics, energy infrastructure and skills, which constrain economic growth and raises costs”. Needless to say, whenever we talk about the need for more skills we are, in turn, talking about our role as the education sector in supporting and propelling the fulfilment of our labour market requirements.
The establishment of a separate department focusing on higher education and training last year seeks to address some of the challenges relating to skills shortages and lack of clear articulation between our Further Education and Training colleges, universities, sector education and training authorities and the labour market. It allows for a focused attention on the specific challenges of the post-schooling system.
Our main objective is to provide better opportunities of access to post-school education while at the same time ensuring that there is provision of the requisite skills in order to address unemployment in the country.
To achieve this objective, we need to draw from the expertise of all our institutions including universities, universities of technology, colleges and the SETAs.
The unacceptable wastage of talent and human capability with such high numbers of young people without employment and training opportunities must be addressed urgently. The department is making concerted efforts in line with the Human Resource Development Strategy of South Africa to address this problem.
We believe that through expanding the Further Education and Training college sector we will be able to create opportunities for some of these young people. We see the expansion of the FET system as a vital part of the mission to create a comprehensive and differentiated post-school system. Directing our students to the colleges will help to reduce the burden currently placed on our universities by the increasing student demand for higher education.
Certainly the department cannot address the challenge of skills deficits alone. We need our institutions also to come on board and develop ways of bridging the gap between institutional output in terms of graduates, and the demands of the economy. We need researchers to inform our policies and practices with their analysis of empirical data. Together, we should make it our primary goal to expand opportunities for our young people to ensure that every young person faces the future with hope, confident of the necessary support from all of us.
Thank you.
