Date: 15/11/2005
Source: Department of Education
Title: Pandor: South Africa Ireland Education Conference
Speaking notes, Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor, MP, at the South Africa-Ireland education conference, co-operation between Ireland and South Africa in skills training and development of expertise: speaking about a skills revolution, Dublin, Ireland
Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa
Minister Mary Hanafin, Minister for Education and Science of the Republic of Ireland Minister Radebe and Deputy Ministers from South Africa
Your Excellency, Ambassador Jana
Member of the Judiciary
Vice Chancellors and Presidents of Universities
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
We face a range of difficult, deep and daunting education challenges in South Africa.
The skills shortages facing the country cannot be resolved overnight. The South African government has been putting the essential building blocks in place to ensure that we meet our national developmental needs.
Our first challenge is to improve the quality of education in all our schools. This is a huge task. The majority of our schools were systematically disadvantaged under apartheid. They were deprived of resources, facilities and qualified teachers. Today, despite one of the most significant examples in recent history of the redistribution of state funding from rich to poor schools, those schools that were advantaged under apartheid still tend to perform substantially better than all other schools.
The second challenge is to encourage school leavers to consider training in our Further Education and Training (FET) colleges. Currently we have far too few students in this sector, only about 400 000. We have recently piloted a Bill through parliament to give these colleges a new lease of life and I will say a little more about them later.
Our third challenge is to ensure the success of students who attend our universities and universities of technology. The number of graduates from these institutions has more than doubled over the last decade, which is encouraging. We have currently about 750 000 headcount students in this sector, the majority at universities.
However, the actual success rate is not what it should be. We are not producing enough graduates in key skill areas. Recent cohort analyses have revealed startling gaps in some faculties at some universities.
The fourth challenge is to make the national skills development strategy (the industrial training programme) work more effectively to support a more competitive business sector and a more efficient state.
Overall the broad challenge is to prepare young people for work more effectively.
All countries currently face the demand for more literate and numerate school leavers than ever before. All of us have been redesigning curricula to suit a world that is reinventing itself rapidly through new technologies. In South Africa our democratic government faced a particular challenge in this regard; black children in the pre-1994 era were not thought suited to learning Mathematics and Science.
So we have resolved to pursue quality Maths and Science education for all but to supplement this general aim through a focus-school approach to the learning of Maths and Science.
The first building block in our skills revolution is the Maths and Science focus-school. We began these focus schools, these Dinaledi schools, in 2001 and they met with mixed success. We revamped the scheme recently, expanded their number, set ourselves new goals, and designed a co-ordinated set of specifications (textbooks, laboratories, and teachers) to draw in the assistance of business.
Without Maths, school leavers cannot go on to succeed in a variety of post-school institutions, in technical and related fields.
The second building block is the further education and training college.
We are in the process of recapitalising our FET colleges. We have been assisted by the National Business Initiative in this process over the past five years. There is a national shortage of skilled and semi-skilled workers. This shortage has serious consequences for our ability to complete large-scale projects like the Gautrain, and preparing to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
About 400 000 students attend FET colleges and 750 000 attend higher education institutions. Given our human resources requirements, and the direction of economic growth in South Africa, the numbers should be the other way round. The number of students should be higher in the colleges.
Only last month we passed a Bill in Parliament that effectively established colleges as separate institutions from schools. Strange to relate, our FET colleges are part of our school system and this prevents adults from participating in programmes.
This Bill provides the framework to strengthen responsiveness, co-ordination and quality. We have recapitalised and redesigned the college sector. From next year they will be able to offer intermediate and high-level skills to students from the age of 16 to mature adults. They will be able to give effect to our long held idea of providing lifelong learning. All indicators of economic growth and development point to the fact that we must have more artisans in all the economic sectors in our country. We believe colleges are best placed to teach these skills alongside industry and other partners. The third building block is the University of Technology. Universities of technology are a major national asset. Students do not need a university exemption to register. In fact, technology universities offer an alternative entry into higher education for students who would otherwise have been excluded on academic grounds from the university sector.
Technology universities offer national diploma and certificate programmes at level five of our National Qualifications Framework (NQF). And employers, parents and students see technology universities as institutions guaranteeing greater employment prospects than universities.
We are short of business and financial managers. We are short of men and women with engineering skills. We are short of men and women with Information Technology (IT) skills. All recent studies and surveys confirm what we already know about scarce skills; management, engineering, and IT are key areas of shortage.
Technology universities have a fundamental role to play in this respect. During the decade of freedom there have been fundamental changes in occupational structure, in qualifications, and in skills required in different economic sectors. However, the overall pattern is for up-skilling or an increase in "skill intensity," especially in managerial, professional, and associate professional occupations.
In addition, there is an increasing need for job specific, technical skill, which is paralleled by an increased demand for skill types that cut across sectors and occupations, including basic skills, generic skill (including verbal, numerical, planning and communication skills), IT skills and management skills.
Technology universities have made a phenomenal contribution to the growth of human capital in South Africa. This is evident through the massive expansion in enrolment in the recent past and the massive improvement in the qualification profile of graduates.
We want to expand career-oriented education. The market requires that graduates increasingly master technical competencies and have practical work-based experience. Perhaps Ireland could help assess our institutional readiness to bridge the skills gap.
The fourth building block is the university. Universities train professionals like lawyers, engineers, and doctors. They are also places of research into the fundamental principles of science.
Our universities have always jealously guarded academic freedom and some of them have a tradition of rejecting state direction or control. Ten years ago the University of Cape Town (UCT), one of our leading universities, did not even have a research policy. The University of Cape Town had an implicit policy that was focused on peer review articles in journals.
The much respected, late, former Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research, John Martin, writing in 1997, said that within the space of a few years, and the publication of a white paper on research, all that had changed.
"The universities, and other research institutions, will be increasingly judged by national and local government, by community organisations and by industry (who are collectively the funders of research) on the contribution they make to the social and economic problems currently facing the country." This was quite an about turn.
UCT set about formulating an explicit research policy. And this is what John Martin said lay at its core, "In formulating the university's position, an understanding of the role of research in the university is essential. I believe it to be part of teaching and learning, in that successful research influences the thinking of researchers, scholars and practitioners both nationally and internationally, and in that it stretches the mind of those engaged in it. It is also inextricably linked to capacity development and to adding value to students, staff and other participants."
Recently we allocated a certain amount of money over and above our subsidy to universities to increase the number of engineering graduates. And the response from the universities was fast, engaged and responsive. I have been told by university vice chancellors that our Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) and Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) initiative have concentrated university minds. It has had an important impact on research universities, which now know they have a crucial role to play in the provision of skills.
The fifth building block in the skills revolution is the national skills programme itself. Government has played a leading role in aligning the skills supply of the education and training sector with the demands of the economy, that is, the skills needs of the private sector, state operated enterprises and government.
To focus and facilitate this process the Joint Council on Priority Skills Acquisition, which includes government, business and labour leaders, has been established. JIPSA serves as a central clearing house for discussion on skills needs and strategy development.
I will leave it up to the Deputy President to tell us more about the initiative when she addresses us later on in the proceedings.
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Education
15 November 2006
Source: Department of Education
Title: Pandor: South Africa Ireland Education Conference
Speaking notes, Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor, MP, at the South Africa-Ireland education conference, co-operation between Ireland and South Africa in skills training and development of expertise: speaking about a skills revolution, Dublin, Ireland
Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa
Minister Mary Hanafin, Minister for Education and Science of the Republic of Ireland Minister Radebe and Deputy Ministers from South Africa
Your Excellency, Ambassador Jana
Member of the Judiciary
Vice Chancellors and Presidents of Universities
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
We face a range of difficult, deep and daunting education challenges in South Africa.
The skills shortages facing the country cannot be resolved overnight. The South African government has been putting the essential building blocks in place to ensure that we meet our national developmental needs.
Our first challenge is to improve the quality of education in all our schools. This is a huge task. The majority of our schools were systematically disadvantaged under apartheid. They were deprived of resources, facilities and qualified teachers. Today, despite one of the most significant examples in recent history of the redistribution of state funding from rich to poor schools, those schools that were advantaged under apartheid still tend to perform substantially better than all other schools.
The second challenge is to encourage school leavers to consider training in our Further Education and Training (FET) colleges. Currently we have far too few students in this sector, only about 400 000. We have recently piloted a Bill through parliament to give these colleges a new lease of life and I will say a little more about them later.
Our third challenge is to ensure the success of students who attend our universities and universities of technology. The number of graduates from these institutions has more than doubled over the last decade, which is encouraging. We have currently about 750 000 headcount students in this sector, the majority at universities.
However, the actual success rate is not what it should be. We are not producing enough graduates in key skill areas. Recent cohort analyses have revealed startling gaps in some faculties at some universities.
The fourth challenge is to make the national skills development strategy (the industrial training programme) work more effectively to support a more competitive business sector and a more efficient state.
Overall the broad challenge is to prepare young people for work more effectively.
All countries currently face the demand for more literate and numerate school leavers than ever before. All of us have been redesigning curricula to suit a world that is reinventing itself rapidly through new technologies. In South Africa our democratic government faced a particular challenge in this regard; black children in the pre-1994 era were not thought suited to learning Mathematics and Science.
So we have resolved to pursue quality Maths and Science education for all but to supplement this general aim through a focus-school approach to the learning of Maths and Science.
The first building block in our skills revolution is the Maths and Science focus-school. We began these focus schools, these Dinaledi schools, in 2001 and they met with mixed success. We revamped the scheme recently, expanded their number, set ourselves new goals, and designed a co-ordinated set of specifications (textbooks, laboratories, and teachers) to draw in the assistance of business.
Without Maths, school leavers cannot go on to succeed in a variety of post-school institutions, in technical and related fields.
The second building block is the further education and training college.
We are in the process of recapitalising our FET colleges. We have been assisted by the National Business Initiative in this process over the past five years. There is a national shortage of skilled and semi-skilled workers. This shortage has serious consequences for our ability to complete large-scale projects like the Gautrain, and preparing to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
About 400 000 students attend FET colleges and 750 000 attend higher education institutions. Given our human resources requirements, and the direction of economic growth in South Africa, the numbers should be the other way round. The number of students should be higher in the colleges.
Only last month we passed a Bill in Parliament that effectively established colleges as separate institutions from schools. Strange to relate, our FET colleges are part of our school system and this prevents adults from participating in programmes.
This Bill provides the framework to strengthen responsiveness, co-ordination and quality. We have recapitalised and redesigned the college sector. From next year they will be able to offer intermediate and high-level skills to students from the age of 16 to mature adults. They will be able to give effect to our long held idea of providing lifelong learning. All indicators of economic growth and development point to the fact that we must have more artisans in all the economic sectors in our country. We believe colleges are best placed to teach these skills alongside industry and other partners. The third building block is the University of Technology. Universities of technology are a major national asset. Students do not need a university exemption to register. In fact, technology universities offer an alternative entry into higher education for students who would otherwise have been excluded on academic grounds from the university sector.
Technology universities offer national diploma and certificate programmes at level five of our National Qualifications Framework (NQF). And employers, parents and students see technology universities as institutions guaranteeing greater employment prospects than universities.
We are short of business and financial managers. We are short of men and women with engineering skills. We are short of men and women with Information Technology (IT) skills. All recent studies and surveys confirm what we already know about scarce skills; management, engineering, and IT are key areas of shortage.
Technology universities have a fundamental role to play in this respect. During the decade of freedom there have been fundamental changes in occupational structure, in qualifications, and in skills required in different economic sectors. However, the overall pattern is for up-skilling or an increase in "skill intensity," especially in managerial, professional, and associate professional occupations.
In addition, there is an increasing need for job specific, technical skill, which is paralleled by an increased demand for skill types that cut across sectors and occupations, including basic skills, generic skill (including verbal, numerical, planning and communication skills), IT skills and management skills.
Technology universities have made a phenomenal contribution to the growth of human capital in South Africa. This is evident through the massive expansion in enrolment in the recent past and the massive improvement in the qualification profile of graduates.
We want to expand career-oriented education. The market requires that graduates increasingly master technical competencies and have practical work-based experience. Perhaps Ireland could help assess our institutional readiness to bridge the skills gap.
The fourth building block is the university. Universities train professionals like lawyers, engineers, and doctors. They are also places of research into the fundamental principles of science.
Our universities have always jealously guarded academic freedom and some of them have a tradition of rejecting state direction or control. Ten years ago the University of Cape Town (UCT), one of our leading universities, did not even have a research policy. The University of Cape Town had an implicit policy that was focused on peer review articles in journals.
The much respected, late, former Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research, John Martin, writing in 1997, said that within the space of a few years, and the publication of a white paper on research, all that had changed.
"The universities, and other research institutions, will be increasingly judged by national and local government, by community organisations and by industry (who are collectively the funders of research) on the contribution they make to the social and economic problems currently facing the country." This was quite an about turn.
UCT set about formulating an explicit research policy. And this is what John Martin said lay at its core, "In formulating the university's position, an understanding of the role of research in the university is essential. I believe it to be part of teaching and learning, in that successful research influences the thinking of researchers, scholars and practitioners both nationally and internationally, and in that it stretches the mind of those engaged in it. It is also inextricably linked to capacity development and to adding value to students, staff and other participants."
Recently we allocated a certain amount of money over and above our subsidy to universities to increase the number of engineering graduates. And the response from the universities was fast, engaged and responsive. I have been told by university vice chancellors that our Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) and Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) initiative have concentrated university minds. It has had an important impact on research universities, which now know they have a crucial role to play in the provision of skills.
The fifth building block in the skills revolution is the national skills programme itself. Government has played a leading role in aligning the skills supply of the education and training sector with the demands of the economy, that is, the skills needs of the private sector, state operated enterprises and government.
To focus and facilitate this process the Joint Council on Priority Skills Acquisition, which includes government, business and labour leaders, has been established. JIPSA serves as a central clearing house for discussion on skills needs and strategy development.
I will leave it up to the Deputy President to tell us more about the initiative when she addresses us later on in the proceedings.
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Education
15 November 2006
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