The government aims to increase the number of engineering graduates and artisans in its race to achieve 6% economic growth by 2010, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on Monday.
South African universities are currently producing about 1 400 engineering graduates each year and the government aims to increase this to 12 000 by 2010, she told journalists at a briefing on the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa) 2007 report.
Jipsa — comprising the government, business and trade unions — was launched in March last year to meet the skills shortages identified in the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (Asgisa) programme.
”We need to produce more and make sure that they register [as practising engineers] and that we retain them,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said.
Demand for both artisans and engineers has been increasing since the 1980s, accompanied by a decline in training, she said.
The Jipsa initiative also agreed on a plan to produce 50 000 artisans by 2010, requiring an annual increase of 7 500. In order to achieve this, agreement has to be reached on 16 priority trades, which included boilermakers, diesel mechanics and welders, and the requirements for each.
Further talks are also taking place to address the qualification, registration and continued training of town and regional planners. This is part of efforts to change the apartheid-era layout of South Africa’s cities.
Efforts to improve the quality of education will include paying schools R1 000 for each pupil who passes maths on the higher grade.
”Budget allocations have been given to address school infrastructure, training of teachers and principals and salary adjustments to performing teachers,” she said.
‘Concerned’
Mlambo-Ngcuka said she is ”very concerned” about Asgisa not having made significant progress in spreading growth to the second (informal) economy.
”Direct second-economy interventions through education and training remain slow and challenging. This includes the need to train people with less than 12 years of schooling,” the report indicates.
As part of efforts to make inroads into skills shortages, graduates are being sent overseas to train with companies there. Technikons require students to gain workplace experience. Since they are often unable to find placements, they are not able to graduate.
”The number of placement opportunities in industry has not kept pace with the growing demand and this problem is particularly acute in rural areas,” according to the Jipsa report.
The proportion of black students enrolling at technikons has increased from 12% in 1988 to 73% in 2000.
In 2006, South Africa gave workplace experience to 942 graduates, followed by 302 in China and 111 by the United States.
Economic growth
Asgisa aims to increase economic growth to 6% by 2010 and halve the current 30% unemployment level by 2014.
According to the Asgisa 2006 annual report, current economic trends indicate that the country will meet its 2004-2009 objective of 4,5% economic growth. Employment creation has also been strong since 2004.
In other areas, such as the industrial sector and the second economy, however, much is still needed.
”Efforts to include the marginalised poor, especially the youth, in the broad economy must become more effective, while services in all three spheres of government need to continue to improve,” the report states.
In the first six months of 2006, national departments spent 33,5% of a total R24,5-billion infrastructure budget.
While this was a 39% spending increase on the same period the previous year, spending remained ”relatively low”, the report acknowledges. — Sapa