It was imperative to develop scarce skills such as those of actuaries as the country's ability to recover and grow economically relied upon this, said Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande on Tuesday.

"The problem of skills shortages in South Africa has a debilitating effect on the country's economic projection and will be largely responsible for the country's failure to achieve the targeted six percent growth rate in the period 2010 to 2014," he said.

Nzimande was speaking in Sandton at a dinner held to honour the success of South African Actuaries Development programme (SAADP) Actuarial Science, Nzimande said, was among the financial sector careers that remained closed to the disadvantaged.

"Our institutions need to produce more graduates in this field, but at the same time there is a need for the profession and the labour market to make sure that it retains sufficient experienced professionals to mentor newcomers.

"For this to happen, it is estimated that the country's economy will have to grow at an average rate of, at least 4,5%, in the period to 2009, and by average 6%in the period 2010 to 2014," Nzimande said.

He commended SAADP for strides it had made since its inception in 2003, saying they had played an important role in transforming the country's financial sector.

The country had only four black actuaries at the time.

"Among the previously disadvantaged institutions only the Universities of the Western Cape and Zululand offer the qualification. It is in this context that efforts towards opening up the profession to the historically disadvantaged population are commendable.

"Let me start by commending SAADP and, in particular, the board of directors for the wonderful work that they are doing to make Actuarial Science accessible to the previously disadvantaged members of our communities," he said.

He warned that while it was important to grow the number of actuaries, it was equally important that the country retained them.

Equally important was the need to address the shortage of artisans, electricians, technicians, mechanics, engineers, scientists and health practitioners, fields which were also experiencing skills shortages.

To achieve this, there needed to be an overhaul of the schooling system to ensure they were better prepared to tackle higher education challenges. "The problem of ill-preparedness of our learners in the schooling system is contributed to by factors such as lack of resources at schools including lack of necessary infrastructure; lack of capacity due to either poor training of educators or them being under-qualified and poor socio-economic status of the majority of learners.

"These and other factors combine to produce learners who do not have a solid foundation," he said.

Nzimande also urged higher education institutions to provide support to poor performing students to ensure that "their talent is not lost for reasons that have nothing to do with their academic capabilities".