Johannesburg - To get South Africa's growth rate to 6% plus there must be a concerted drive to educate and train the workforce as the current lack of skills is a major constraint to sustainable growth, said director and chief economist of Econometrix, Dr Azar Jammine.
Jammine said that while formal sector jobs growth of 180 000 was reported between June 2006 and March 2007, 700 000 jobs were needed a year to halve unemployment by 2014.
He added there is a teacher shortage in SA with the major skills constraints having a lot to do with the schooling system.
He pointed out that the number of people in South Africa with just grade 10-11 - that is, leaving school before they had finished matric - had increased to 48.5% from 34.5% in 1995.
He said that even though the unemployment rate was far lower for those with tertiary qualifications, people were also not studying in the fields currently critical to the economy.
There are high unemployment rates for graduates in humanities and arts and law at 20%, science and engineering graduates have lower unemployment rates.
Degree number also declined
"There is a reluctance among South Africans to take on the difficult subjects," said Jammine.
"Particularly disturbing is the proportion of Black Africans with tertiary qualifications also declined," he said.
He added that the number of people with degrees has also declined and this was "not conducive to skills reductions".
Nevertheless, he pointed out there had been an increase in the proportion of Black Africans in top management positions to 13.4% in 2006 from 8.7% in 2000.
Notably, those who were professionally qualified had dipped to just over 20% from a far higher 32.8% in 2000.
Jammine also showed that the number of Black Africans with higher grade maths was at just around the 1 000 mark.
Far fewer teachers
"It is a major constraint and has a lot to do with the schooling system," he pointed out, adding that only 11.4% of Black Africans were getting university exemptions.
"How do you then facilitate BEE?" he asked.
Jammine also stated there were far too few teachers being produced at the 6 000 mark currently, whereas 21 000 per annum were actually required. Some large universities had only produced one maths teacher last year, for example.
Jammine labelled the state of education as a "major institutional problem".
"Naledi Pandor is very capable, but she inherited the system. Her powers are also more constrained than other ministers," said Jammine.
He also said the corporate sector needed to get more involved in skills alleviation as the crunch was going to come soon where they would not find the right people.
He suggested the government and corporate sector need to work together to alleviate the problem as simply paying the 1% skills levy and washing their hands of it was not working.
I-Net Bridge