A new survey on national skills shows there is an alarming lack of skills in key sectors of South Africa’s economy.
The first national master scarce skills list — released by the labour department recently — logs a comprehensive number of skills that are needed by the country if it is to overcome obstacles that hamper economic growth and, in so doing, undermine job creation.
The list was compiled to help support the government’s drive to boost economic growth, part of the accelerated shared growth and skills initiative of South Africa (Asgisa) strategy.
The government aims to use the list as a tool for targeted interventions and the development of mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the success and effect of measures taken to redress the shortage of skills in the country.
Despite a number of initiatives already in place to address the issue of the skills shortage, results have been disappointing.
The government believes the new national scarce skills list will provide a basis for establishing a work permit quota list and evaluate employer-sponsored applications for work permits.
Despite pressure from business, government has delayed passing the Immigration Bill, which is aimed at easing the obstacles encountered when people with skills — who could help deal with the increasing demand in infrastructure development — try to enter the country.
The list logs agriculture as one of the sectors most in need of skills. There are not nearly enough crop and livestock farm managers or labourers in the country.
The health and welfare and engineering sectors also show serious skills shortages.
It has been estimated that more than 1 000 more engineers, 300 more technicians and 15 000 more artisans will need to be trained to reduce the skills shortage within the engineering sector.
Universities and universities of technology — formerly technikons — produce between 1 300 and 1 400 engineers and 5 000 artisans a year.
Andre Kraak, an education research and training consultant, says the shortage of engineers is mainly because of poor secondary education.
To improve the future supply of engineers, Kraak believes the government should make secondary education its national priority.
Kraak says although there has been an increase in the number of engineering graduates coming through the tertiary institutions, not enough students specialise, leading to gaps in innovative learning.
He says one of the problems of skills shortage audits like the one compiled by the Labour Department is that employment numbers and supply side figures do not always confirm the argument about shortages.
“For example, the alleged shortage of artisans and engineers is not backed up by the employment and education data.
“Both employment and training trends in these two fields have been flat or have declined in the past decade. This is often called the ‘paradox’ of the so-called skills shortages crises.”
Kraak cautions against using a “numbers” focus because he believes this approach “overemphasises” the skills that are being supplied by education institutions.
On closer inspection, he says, the issues might well have to do with poor deployment and use of skills.
Understanding “experience”, says Kraak, is far more important than any attempt to quantify the skills shortage, which is difficult and often inaccurate.
“I would argue that focusing on these two variables: improving work organisation to utilise existing skills more effectively and understanding the effect of very hard-to-recruit areas of experience and expertise is a more rewarding exercise than the number crunching of skills audits,” he says.