T Didiza: Masakhisizwe Bursary Collaborative Venture

6 August 2007

Programme Director
MEC for Transport and Public Works, Marius Fransman
Chairperson of the Masakhisizwe Centre of Excellence, Dr Mamphele
Ramphele
Representatives of the City of Cape Town
Representatives from various sponsors
Honoured guests

It is a great privilege to be invited to speak at this crucial venture which
is meant to tackle one of the biggest impediments to our economic growth in
this country, which is lack of skills. I would like to start of by
congratulating the lucky students who have been granted bursaries through this
great innovative centre. You guys are young, talented and lucky. Having secured
these bursaries, it really is up to you to grab this opportunity and make it
count, both for yourselves and the country.

Ladies and gentleman, I would like to congratulate my colleague here, MEC
Fransman for the foresight and insight he has shown in racketing up the bursary
scheme that he found here as a new MEC in August 2005. Even though the
department had the roads infrastructure portfolio, it only had a bursary scheme
that catered for ten students to address the engineering skills needs of this
portfolio. That the budget and the number has been increased to 250 this year,
up from 130 last year clearly shows this insight and leadership. Well done MEC
and your staff for looking far into the future needs of our country.

Indeed our country is in a grip of a great skills shortage and need. Our
country is in the throes of a massive infrastructure development and
improvement programme. With growth rates in construction spend of around 10%
per annum, the highest that it has been in the last 30 years, construction
spend is in fact growing at a higher rate than Gross Domestic Product. However,
there are many challenges that need to be tackled in a range of public and
private sector partnerships to further unlock infrastructure bottlenecks and to
create capacity and skills.

The challenges in the built environment are huge and need urgent attention
as the deadlines are so tight as well. Even as the government accelerates the
infrastructure development, the demographic profile of registered built
environment professionals is a long way from reflecting the demographics of the
country. As the economy begins to boom with upward trends predicted well beyond
2010, there are increasing demands for professional services, and the pool of
skills represented by built environment professions should increase
accordingly. However, current trends, with specific reference to the built
professions, indicate that this important skills base is in decline, with very
few new entrants compared to the large numbers who are leaving the
profession.

Due to the interdependence of infrastructure and the economy, these
prospects pose a major challenge to the sector to replenish the skills base
rapidly; failing which projected economic growth may not be achieved. There are
many reasons for the decline in registrations, among them:

* retirement trends of senior built environment professionals, especially
civil engineers
* emigration trends of professionals
* a legal loophole requiring only those persons who, in essence, are liable for
the work of a professional to register
* declining student enrolments at tertiary institutions (due in part to the low
number of school-leavers with higher grade mathematics)
* unattractive working conditions (particularly in civil engineering)
* comparatively low levels of remuneration
* poor career and promotion prospects.

Another greatly worrying fact is the ageing profile of the built environment
professionals. We are all agreed that urgent steps need to be taken to arrest
this situation, especially among the black graduates. There is an endemic
shortage in South Africa of high-level professional and managerial skills.
Particular shortages are in the science, engineering, technology and financial
occupations. These are also the fields in which current demands are the
greatest. Enrolment trends at tertiary institutions also indicate that they are
not meeting this need, neither in terms of numbers nor in fields of study.

The decrease in the number of enrolments at tertiary institutions is the
result of two factors. Firstly, there has been a sharp decline in the number of
school-leavers with matriculation exemption, a prerequisite for university
entry. The number of school leavers obtaining a matriculation exemption
decreased from 89 000 in 1994 to 68 626 in 2000, a decrease of 20 374 or 23%
and almost 50% fewer than the National Commission on Higher Education's
(NCHE's) projections for the same period. The matriculation results after 2000
have remained well below 90 000 per year, with the current results for 2006
standing at 86 531 matriculation exemptions.

The second factor has been the significant decrease in the number of
students completing their studies in higher education. Current evidence
indicates that there are wide disparities in the graduation rates of black and
white students the average graduation rate for white students tends to be more
than double that of black students.

Regarding the fields of study, the main change that has happened has been a
shift from the humanities to business and commerce, while enrolments in
science, engineering and technology have remained relatively constant. The
spread of black students across different programme areas, particularly those
that generate the highest benefits for graduates, is uneven. The available
evidence indicates that black students predominantly pursue careers in the
humanities, with low enrolments in science, engineering and technology,
business and commerce as well as in postgraduate programmes.

Ladies and gentleman, the gravity of this situation must be viewed against
the background of the Report of the Task Force on Higher Education and Society,
Higher Education in Developing Countries: Perils and Promise, World Bank, 2000,
which highlights the correlation between economic development and the level of
participation in higher education. According to that report, the average higher
education gross participation rate is just over 40% for high-income countries,
just over 20% for middle-income countries and 5% for low-income countries. The
figure of 15% for South Africa is well below that of comparable middle-income
countries.

The National Plan for Higher Education in 2001 confirms that the
participation rate for South Africa, that is the ideal number of 20 to
24-year-olds at tertiary institutions, should be 20%. However as a result of
poor graduation rates, poor retention rates and high drop-out rates amongst
black students, the participation rate as at 2001 was 15%. Taking into
consideration quality issues caused by the apartheid legacy, even that 15%
cannot really be said to be the cream of the crop.

One of the causes of the low enrolment rate at higher education institutions
is the low rate of learners matriculating and the even lower rate of
matriculants passing with endorsement that is, satisfying the entry
requirements for tertiary institutions. For example, to study civil engineering
at university a higher grade mathematics symbol of A, B, or C is required and
for most Universities of Technology with a minimum of a C symbol in standard
grade mathematics required. These criteria present an immense challenge,
especially to black learners, more than 50% of whom are schooled in poorly
equipped rural and township schools.

Although the number of learners gaining endorsement has increased from 1996
to 2005, the low numbers of black learners who pass higher grade mathematics is
a stumbling block in the supply of entrants to occupations with high-level
skill requirements such as the built environment professions and is therefore
severely hampering the transformation of these professions.

To ensure sufficient competent built environment professionals, an adequate
supply of high-calibre entrants into the professions is essential. In order to
arrest the situation we need to come up with innovative ideas like this bursary
scheme. We also need to provide crucial facilities in order to improve the pass
rate of our students. The majority of schools that offer mathematics and
science have a serious problem with regard to facilities such as laboratories
and equipment to promote effective learning and teaching. The teaching of
science therefore remains at a theoretical level without any experiments to
enhance understanding and the application of knowledge. The inadequate supply
of classrooms and lack of essential services is also a well-documented
impediment: by the end of 2003, 48% of schools did not have electricity.

The lack of awareness of career opportunities in the built environment
professions leads many school leavers with appropriate mathematics and science
symbols to take up more popularised careers, for example in the Information
Technology (IT), finance or medical fields. The professional bodies in this
field must do better; they need to market their field.

Growth presupposes capacity to deliver at the rate and scale needed. But as
it has been shown above, indications are that the sector lacks capacity to
deliver, specifically at the level of the professional sub-sector. The
government's plan to expand public infrastructure rapidly over the current
Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) period has already placed huge
pressure on infrastructure delivery related professionals, that is, civil
engineers, and will deteriorate over the short to medium term as the older
professionals retire. It is therefore clear that there is an under-supply of
professional services, especially in the built environment professions. At the
launch of Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa) in March
2006, the Deputy President formally declared a skills crisis with particular
reference to the type of skills required by built environment professions.

Given that Jipsa has already declared a skills crisis and should current
registration trends not improve, the lack of capacity in the professions will
have a crippling effect on future public infrastructure delivery programmes if
the above circumstances come to fruition. The complicating factor is that it
takes between four and six years to train a typically built environment
professionals and other alternatives will have to be sought to avoid delivery
bottlenecks in the industry.

In terms of the pipeline for supply of potential built environment
professionals, there appears to be a lack of attractiveness of the professions
to young people as a whole and therefore the lack of a resource base to
constitute a dependable supply of professionals and this is particularly
relevant to black people.

Entry into a tertiary institution requires that matriculants should receive
an endorsement certificate, but as a result of poor pass rates in mathematics
and science subjects, very limited numbers of black learners are able to meet
the entry requirements. Those who do meet entry requirements are often
prevented from gaining access to tertiary programmes due to lack of student
financial aid, namely loans, scholarships and bursaries at undergraduate
level.

So, this great venture has come at the right time for your province. We need
creative solutions to our problems. We need to face the challenge head-on and
strive to work together to pull our country out of this challenge. Tertiary
institutions will have to modernise academic programmes both in terms of
teaching methods and programme content. Secondly, tertiary institutions must
provide incentives in terms of better working conditions as there is an
inadequate supply of appropriately qualified teaching staff.

I believe that the government will also have to use some stick if the
industry does not play ball in order to meet the transformation challenges. The
suite of professions' Acts empowers the councils to determine conditions for
the renewal of registration. Currently, renewal is only refused where a
registered person has failed to pay the annual fee within the prescribed
period, or has been registered on the basis of false information or has become
disqualified due to reasons stated in the Acts.

The Acts further require the statutory councils to determine, after
consultation with the voluntary associations and registered persons, conditions
relating to and the nature and extent of continuing education and training.
Since the promulgation of the professions' Acts, attendance of Continuing
Professional Development (CPD) courses has remained voluntary but this is set
to change: the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) has established a new
CPD model effective from 2006, requiring all registered engineers to keep
record of their CPD activities to maintain their registration.

With reference to international best practice models established by built
environment professional bodies in the United States (US), Canada, United
Kingdom (UK), Australia and New Zealand, it is noted that the attendance of CPD
courses linked to renewal of registration and membership of professional
associations is mandatory. Failure to comply with CPD requirements through
accumulation of prescribed credit points and or submission of reports may lead
to various sanctions ranging from fines to cancellation of registration. The
linking of a mandatory CPD programme to renewal of registration could therefore
in the context of South Africa serve as an effective tool to get compliance by
professionals with activities aimed at lifelong learning and accelerating
transformation in the built environment professions.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to close by suggesting the following in
order to alleviate some of the problems alluded to in my speech:

1. Bring back retired professionals to enable them to transfer skills to
young professionals entering the built environment.
2. Encourage sharing of best practice: The need to encourage sector
organisations to learn from others on what they are doing in terms of closing
the capacity gaps and learn from them.
3. Mentoring programmes, the sector organisations need to start looking at
innovative ways of improving the knowledge base of professionals such as
mentoring programs with a view to empowering emerging young
professionals.
4.Intense Project Management Training Programmes, there is a strong need for
intense project management training programmes for new professionals to enhance
their Programme and Project Management capacity to be able to handle
infrastructure delivery programmes.
5. Training and Skills development for the industry as mentioned above,
training is a very critical component of capacity building and development.
There is a need for the industry to invest in the training of both existing and
new capacity to improve the production and quality of delivery. There is also a
need for collaborative efforts with regard to the development of capacity for
the industry between the public and private sector client bodies.

Once again, hearty congratulations to the provincial government and the
various sponsors for coming up with innovative solutions to our skills
challenge.

I thank you.

Issued by: Department of Public Works
6 August 2007