SA aims to close gap between education and workplace

Colleges should equip students with skills required by industry through changing the nature of tuition programmes offered to close the gap between education and workplace, Higher Education and Training Minister Naledi Pandor told the career development summit yesterday.

Organised by the Fibre Processing and Manufacturing Sector Education and Training Authority, the annual two-day summit at the Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand, north of Johannesburg, is aimed at developing the next generation of leaders.

Encouraging pupils at the summit to “take up getaway subjects like maths and science”, Pandor said pupils should “aim to become manufacturers of the future – not just workers”.

“A factory of the future will use robotics to produce high-quality products to be marketed anywhere in the world.” South Africa, Pandor said, had “an oversupply of low-skilled workers and an undersupply of the highly skilled.

“We struggle to compete in labour-intensive global markets because our unskilled workers are too expensive and we struggle to compete in capital-intensive markets because we are short of high-level skills.

“Those with high-level skills are employed in the dynamic parts of the economy such as hi-tech manufacturing and medicine, creative industries, business services, computer software, advertising, mobile phones and in aerospace engineering.

“Globally, the market for people with portable skills is exploding in areas like engineering, finance, marketing, construction, health, management and technology.”

Pandor said low-income developing countries like China and India were spending billions on infrastructure, “creating enormous demand for skilled workers”.

She said government has drawn up a list of priority trades, which included bricklayers, electricians, boilermakers, plumbers, mechanics, carpenters, fitters and turners.

– brians@citizen.co.za

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