CHARMAINE PRETORIUS, Durban | Saturday
GOVERNMENT proposed to increase the number of students in higher education by 20% over the medium to long term, but South Africa could no longer afford to produce thousands of students for the international labour market, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Friday.
Manuel was speaking at a University of Durban Westville University dinner to strengthen links with major business in KwaZulu-Natal and to ensure financial support for the institution which has produced a number of the country’s political and financial leaders.
Manuel said thousands of skilled people left the country each year, resulting in the import of scarce skills at high cost to the economy and the country to fill the vacuum created by those leaving.
”These foreign skills are usually costly, and cannot always be relied upon to understand the developmental and national context that the locals have grasped and have first hand experience of,” Manuel said.
He said unemployment in the country was unacceptably high and the divide between the white rich nation and the poor black nation could not be allowed to continue.
”It is clear that we have the capacity for South Africa to at least go some way in bridging the gap between rich and poor. The will of business and industry is needed in this regard.”
Manuel said partnerships between the private and public sectors could leverage resources to have a greater impact on learning and productivity.
He added that many large companies in the country still did not have a corporate social responsibility programme.
South Africa was considered the engine of growth for Africa and was one of the most important emerging markets, but apartheid had left the country with a poor human resource base which needed to be addressed if it wanted to be competitive in the global economy.
Manuel said a poor human resource base impacted heavily on the size of markets and personnel recruitment.
It indirectly led to greater uncertainty in the work place, lower productivity and even some fluidity of the Rand — ”although the fluctuation of the Rand has very little to do with what happens in South Africa”.
As far as human resource development was concerned, the future of business and education had to be closely linked.
”I believe that our human resources are one of the most important factors of production in today’s global economy. Whether we like it or not we are part of a skills food chain,” Manuel said. – Sapa