Education a 'huge economic drag'

Johannesburg -South Africa is not competing, even with emerging markets, in the tertiary education sector and it is something that needs to be addressed urgently if South Africa intends to enter the global knowledge economy.

This is according to chief economist from T-Sec, Mike Schüssler, who said on Wednesday that only 8% of SA's population has tertiary "B" type of education compared with 16% for emerging markets and 25% for the developed world.

Tertiary "B" would include technikon education, as opposed to students who can advance to do honours and masters levels.

"In that sense we can't compete," says Schüssler.

"We're going to have to do something about the education side of things, but unfortunately it takes a while. It is something we have to address if we want to enter the knowledge economy," he said.

And he emphasises that fixing education is not about money.

"What we need is a better system - just look at what it does to the workforce," said Schüssler.

Schüssler pointed out that the ratio of age groups to completing high school showed that SA was now even beaten by other African countries.

He was commenting on Wednesday after the release of the Mastercard Worldwide Emerging Markets Index, which showed that Johannesburg is ranked 11 among the 65 leading cities driving growth within more 30 emerging markets.

"This kind of study gives us an ability to look at our strengths and weaknesses as against other cities in the same arena we're playing in," concluded Schüssler.

- I-Net Bridge