At the launch of the PPC skills academy, he said that while the government had reconfirmed its commitment to skills empowerment and quality education for everyone, state-sponsored programmes such as the Sector Training and Skills Authorities (Setas) could only facilitate training, while the responsibility of providing the actual training lay with employers.
The current trend of the country producing matriculants at a 400 000- plus annual rate was the real threat to South Africa's economic growth.
"As a nation, we are actually sitting on a time bomb and need to act swiftly before this gets out of hand. The continued mass production of unemployable and unskilled matriculants is a threat to all of us," he said.
He urged employers to emulate the 115-year-old cement company's initiative and provide skills graduates with workplace experience in order to build their careers.