Andre Kraak

Human resources development and the skills crisis in South Africa: the need for a multi‐pronged strategy

This article presents a critique of the ‘high skills’ argument which, in the international literature, presents a high skill strategy as an adjunct and necessary condition for the successful expansion of human resources development (HRD) alongside social market institutions and ‘joined up’ policy 1. For a developing country such as South Africa, with a large proportion of its populace unemployed and possessing very low levels of skill, a privileging of high skills is inappropriate as the single focus of HRD. The article argues the case for a multi‐pronged HRD approach, comprising a joint high‐skill and intermediate‐skill strategy on the supply side, underpinned by a demand‐driven strategy that seeks to stimulate large‐scale labour‐absorbing employment growth and is supported by appropriate inputs of training for the unemployed. The analysis then examines the actual skills deficit in South Africa in each of the three (high, intermediate and low) skill bands, drawing on evidence from the recent HRD Review 2003 (HSRC, 2003). The article concludes that the skills problem in South Africa relates not only to high‐skill needs but also to intermediate and low‐skill needs.

A Critical Review of the National Skills Development Strategy in South Africa.

This article provides an update on the Special Edition of the Journal of Vocational Education and Training 57, no. 3, 2005, which focused on the launch of the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS) in South Africa. The analysis here evaluates the impact of the first phase of the NSDS, which ran between 1 April 2001 and 31 March 2005. The discussion highlights many of the successes and challenges facing skills development in South Africa. Central amongst these are: (i) a lack of political will to ensure the success of the ‘integrated’ approach to education and training formally adopted in South Africa after 1994; (ii) severe governance problems with regard to the management of Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs), including financial mismanagement and fraud; and lastly, a multitude of operational problems, making the rollout of the NSDS an extremely difficult and complex task.

Incoherence in the South African labour market for intermediate skills

This article is concerned with the production and employment of technically skilled labour at the intermediate level in South Africa. Three differing labour market pathways to intermediate skilling are identified. These are: the traditional apprenticeship route, the new ‘Learnerships’ pathway (similar to the ‘modern apprenticeship’ schemes adopted in the UK) and finally, further education and training college programmes in engineering and related technical fields. It is argued that in sharp contrast to the highly structured conditions of the artisanal ‘occupational labour market’ of yesteryear, the three training pathways that operate in South Africa today possess few linkages with each other or with employment. In addition, as access to opportunities in the labour market have opened up politically for black South Africans since the advent of democracy in 1994, so access to employment after training has weakened for this social grouping because of the lack of structured linkages between these pathways and employment, and more generally, because of the failure of the ‘new South Africa’ to create meaningful pathways from school to work.

The Challenge of the "Second Economy" in South Africa: The Contribution of Skills Development.

Abstract This article investigates the contribution skills development can make in promoting South Africas wider socio-economic development. It provides a broad overview of the emerging gap between those who are benefiting from South Africas transition to democracy and those who are not. Overcoming these worsening social conditions has become a major priority in governments new policy framework. It has been referred to as the challenge of the ‘second economy’, a polemical device aimed at drawing attention to the two-fold challenge of promoting economic growth, whilst reducing poverty and inequality. The article then goes on to describe the new skills development policy framework and the ways in which the Department of Labour is attempting to deal with the ‘second economy’ through a variety of skills development strategies. The progress made in implementing this new approach is then interrogated. Several problems are identified. The analysis concludes by arguing that both government and employers are currently falling short of the capabilities required to effectively rollout these ambitious reforms.