Picture: iStock
A review report on the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) shows a growing gap in skills.
The DHET presented its Budget Review and Recommendations Report (BRRR) to parliament last week, featuring six areas of responsibility.
The report outlines the department’s financial and operational targets for the 2023/24 financial year and discusses adjustments for the next 12 months.
Among the measurables were the skills development objectives of the department.
Having set themselves 11 separate targets, they recorded a failing grade, meeting only 28% of those targets.
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The DHE said this was down from 42% in the previous financial year and was the second year in a row where the success rate had declined.
While they performed well in getting pupils into artisan programmes and graduation rates for artisans — 88.9% and 95% success in those areas — the overall picture was less impressive.
The department had a target of having 149,000 pupils enrolled in skills development programmes, however, DBE only recorded 53,518 registered pupils. This is 64.1% short of the desired mark.
Additionally, 87,915 pupils or students benefited from work-based learning programmes, well short of the 110,500 target.
“The underachievement was ascribed to the labour market not yet fully recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic thus employers could not place more learners,” stated the BRRR.
“This has a negative implication for the massification of skills development programmes,” the report added.
Of the positives, 100% of Sector Education Training Authorities (Seta) met the standard of good governance, trade test waiting times were down to 26 days and 21 Seta developed credible sector skills plans.
Skills development is one of six performance areas measured, with the other five achieving between 40 and 78% of their previous financial year targets.
A breakdown of the six key performance areas of the DHET. Picture: DHET
Hendrick Makaneta, founder of the Foundation for Education and Social Justice Africa, said the numbers showed that the nation was “slowly but surely losing the war against unemployment”.
“There is no doubt that structural unemployment is the result of a lack of relevant skills,” Makaneta told The Citizen.
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A 2024 study published by Statista concurred with his assessment, showing that almost 40% of those without matric were jobless, while that number only improved to 33% for those with only matric.
Unemployment for graduates was down to 9.6%.
“Government should move with the necessary speed to ensure that more and more learners receive skills that can enable them to make a meaningful contribution in the mainstream economy,” he added.
Unemployment among South Africans aged between 25 and 34 years old has hovered around the 40% mark since late 2020.
Roughly 60% of 15-to 24-year-olds are unemployed, however, according to Statista, only 12.5% of 55- to 65-year-olds were unemployed.
“The other challenge that we must overcome is the job market. We have said it many times that the jobs that exist today will become obsolete in the near future.
“If we fail to prepare our learners for the change in the job markets, we shall have failed humanity as a whole,” Makaneta concluded.
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