While South Africa has sufficient national interest programmes and institutional funding arrangements in place to effectively implement skills development priorities, the rate of certified skills coming into the economy was still low, the Production Management Institute (PMI) said on Thursday.

The current national learnership certification rate in South Africa, for example, is as low as 34%, yet the cost of a learnership runs at about R40 000, PMI strategy director Johan Botha said.

He said that this was because the basics of professional career guidance and assessment of prospective learners was not being prioritised in learnership processes.

“These very basic steps have been neglected at the systemic level and are certainly not being adequately dealt with at institutional levels. Yet they are fundamental building blocks for successful career path development, for the production of formal qualifications and for advancing our national skills base.”

“If the process of learner career guidance, counselling, assessment, induction and quality-driven practices are not standard elements of implementing national priorities around skills, the skills deficit in South Africa, together with unemployment, will simply continue to grow.”

Botha said that once more prospective learners had been adequately assesed in terms of cognitive ability, personality, emotional maturity and competency and placed into an appropriate learnership programme, the country would start seeing higher certification levels, better use of funds for skills development, motivated and productive employees and far fewer industrial relations challenges.

Between employers, Sector Education and Training Authorities, the National Skills Fund and the Industrial Development Corporation, Botha believes South Africa has sufficient levels of funding to drive skills development.