Cape Times,March 28th 2006 – “Skills revolution needed, says Mlambo-Ngcuka”
“Professional skills were critically needed as the country moved into higher economic gear, deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on March 27th.
Speaking during the launch of the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa), Mlambo-Ngcuka said nothing short of a skills revolution would extricate the country from the skills shortage crisis it faced.
The accelerated and shared growth initiative for South Africa (Asgisa) has identified six factors that constrain growth. One of these is the shortage of skilled labour. Jipsa is a high-level task team and its job is to identify urgent skills needs and advise on ways to respond to these challenges.
“The immediate focus of Jipsa will be on skills identified by Asgisa. These include skills needed for infrastructure development in government, the private sector and state-owned enterprises, the expanded public works programme and public service and social service delivery,” she said.
“Skills are not just one of the constraints facing Asgisa but a potentially fatal constraint. That fact should be admitted with emphasis.”
She said Jipsa was only focusing on scarce and critical skills without which the country could not deliver on Asgisa commitments and targets.
A shortage of skills is hampering attempts to grow the economy faster, and the government has said it would speed up work permits for foreigners.
Mlambo-Ngcuka said Jipsa must put in place a system to bring in volunteers, retirees and other people with the skills required and identified.
Based on Asgisa, priorities working areas identified for Jipsa are high-level, world-class engineering and planning skills for network industries, transport, communications and energy, all of which are at the core of the country’s infrastructure program.
Bobby Godsell, the chairman of Business Unity SA, said there was a need for a skills strategy that was both occupation-relevant and rich in transferable skills. “In this regard we must be careful that the concept of learnership is not robbed of all occupational content,” Godsell said.
“This concern is occasioned by the phenomenon of unemployed graduates. Employers are clearly not sourcing new trainees from among the corps of graduates available for the labour market,” he said.”
Sections of Interest: Visas