The loss of skills caused by the brain drain is not an acute problem for South Africa’s economy, Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin said on Tuesday at the Technology and Human Resources for Industry Programme (Thrip) awards.
”I think the return flow is growing. We should not worry if young people go overseas and get experience. This is a good process… as they can bring back those skills to South Africa,” he said.
In addition to attracting many skills from Africa, Erwin said South Africa was linking up with international research projects to give the country easy access to the international scientific community.
Cabinet has also looked at fast-tracking technology-based skills, which includes instituting university reforms, creating centres of excellence and the creation of the Setas, said Erwin.
”We are also working with the Department of Home Affairs to establish very broad quota-type provisions in the Immigration Act, making it easier for those skills to come into the country,” he said.
South Africa’s ability to use and manipulate knowledge is increasingly becoming one of South Africa’s greatest strengths, said Erwin.
One programme which specifically looks at improving the country’s use of knowledge is the Technology and Human Resources for Industry Programme.
Established in 1991, the initiative has two main aims: to develop the technology needed to solve industrial problems, and to produce highly skilled people to implement the technology.
The initiative aims to foster collaboration among industry, higher education institutions and government science, engineering and technology institutions (SETIs).
Thrip is ”explicitly designed to link tertiary education with the private sector”, said Erwin.
The programme is managed by the National Research Foundation and funded by the Department of Trade and Industry and the private sector. For every rand donated by industry, Thrip donates a rand.
So far it has supported more than 250 projects, with grants amounting to R130-million, which focus on research at technikons and historically black universities. It promotes technological know-how within the small, medium and micro-enterprise (SMME) sector.
Thrip also aims to increase the number of black and female students who pursue technological and engineering careers.
Erwin said the programme was developed with the introduction of democracy, when the government realised that it had to make some structural changes to develop a manufacturing economy.
This could not happen if the country was not capable of generating technical capability and people with skills, he said.
Thrip was created to get people excited about technology and to expand capability. It was ”designed to create momentum and pull more and more people in,” he said.
Erwin called the basic strategy ”integrated manufacturing strategy”, which involved taking things the economy was already doing and linking and upgrading them.
”This ability to innovative, create and provide solutions … is important,” he said.
The overall winner of the Thrip awards was Professor Silvana Luyckx of the University of Witwatersrand for her research on the development of hard materials for use in global industry.
The project aims to help South African producers of hard materials to compete internationally. Hard materials are important in industry as the harder a product, the lower the wear.
”Technology is going somewhere and South Africa is going somewhere,” said Erwin. – Sapa