The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Thursday accused the government of stubbornly refusing to admit that the affirmative action policy is at the core of South Africa’s skills crisis, and proposed ways to redress the crisis.
During a media briefing at Parliament, DA spokesperson Mark Lowe emphasised, however, that the DA is not opposed to affirmative action to address the imbalances of the past, but rather has a problem with the way it is being implemented.
Lowe said it is recognised that the government is simply unable to deliver properly because it lacks the capacity to turn policy into reality.
There has, in turn, been an effort to capacitate and strengthen existing educational institutions and to create new bodies, such as the sector education and training authorities (Setas), in an attempt to address the situation.
At face value, the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa), launched in March 2005, also represents an attempt to address the situation.
However, on closer inspection, many of the Jipsa initiatives already exist and have simply been lumped together under a common banner.
”Nevertheless, there is a stubborn refusal by the country’s national leadership to admit that, at the very core of South Africa’s skills crisis, is the policy of affirmative action.
”Its tenets run against the principles of merit and quality, and place race rather than individual ability as the key criterion for selection, both inside and outside of government,” Lowe said.
The skills shortage can be blamed partly on the depth of damage done by apartheid education, but also on costly mistakes made in skills development during the past 11 years.
The first mistake is the collapse of the technical-training and artisan-apprenticeship system with the introduction of Setas.
Secondly, school education has been allowed to decline as quality is sacrificed, especially in maths and science, in the race to improve the pass rate.
Thirdly, senior public servants are offered early retirement packages to address the equity challenge, while there are not enough experienced black professionals to fill the posts.
Lowe said that while the imbalances of the past have to be redressed, affirmative action has to be seriously reviewed because it remains a major hindrance to resolving the skills shortage.
”This policy cannot and must not continue for an indefinite period.
”There is now such a shortage of skills that all we need to do to bring about an appropriate diversity is to ensure that black people are properly educated and skilled and they will, on merit, take their place in every area of our economy.”
In relation to education and training, while government is to be commended for taking the right initiatives, in broad terms, it has failed to take the appropriate action when those initiatives have failed.
The Setas are not working and should be completely scrapped and replaced with an employer-driven technical-training and artisan-apprenticeship system, he said.
Further, the government, possibly through Statistics South Africa, should develop a database of the state’s skills requirements so that it has an adequate grasp of exactly what skills are needed and where.
Among other things, the loss of experience and knowledge has to be reversed at senior levels, and retired professionals harnessed to help with workplace training to develop the rapidly transforming pool of graduates, he said. — Sapa