News
LOW COGNITIVE SKILLS
HAMPER EDUCATION ( PART 1 )
By Eamonn Ryan
School education continues to drive scholars to either the jobless market or to universities as opposed to where the need really lies – in trade employment . Due to substandard education , the average cognitive skill level of South Africa lags behind that of its poorer neighbouring countries , according to Garth Zietsman , a statistician who analyses and writes for the Free Market Foundation . He writes that it ’ s feasible that South Africa could at least equal the current mental skill level of those neighbours , but that is by no means a high level . If we were to improve the current cognitive skill level to that of our neighbours at least , we should expect the annual economic growth rate to increase by almost 1 %. 1
He notes that English working classes once suffered the same defect , but in short order gained the cognitive skills necessary to improve industrial productivity and their employment and wages rose dramatically , transforming their lives and prospects .
To similarly achieve this , South African students need to verifiably acquire new skills each year , rather than merely spending time in school , and that results only in a pretence of ‘ qualifications ’ that is actually rather expensive . Scraping a 30 % pass on what is undemanding material does not equate to a build-up of skills .
This scenario is compounded when it comes to the trades . Not only is it a struggle to get matriculants to opt for a trade , when they do qualify from a technical and vocational education and training ( TVET ) anecdotal evidence is that they are virtually unemployable .
Higher Education , Science and Technology Minister Dr Blade Nzimande earlier this year announced a drop in registrations for Ministerial-approved programmes TVET colleges for the 2023
“ The main source of skills is the private colleges , as at the moment the public sector TVETs are mostly dysfunctional .”
References :
1 . https :// www . businesslive . co . za / bd / opinion / 2023-01-27-garthzietsman-students-must-truly-gain-new-skills-every-year-atschool /
© Eamonn Ryan / RACA
Training at ACRA .
academic year . The National Development Plan ( NDP ) targets to get 2.5-million TVET registrations a year by 2030 , a target which seems grossly out of reach .
The 2023 enrolment was 497 032 , compared to 508 000 in 2022 , which was itself lower than the enrolments funded by the State and TVET colleges in the 2021 academic year . Further , the total number of candidates , at 133 442 , who wrote the November 2022 National Vocational Certificate Level 2 to 4 examinations , decreased by 4 909 , or 3.7 %, compared with the 2021 figure .
PERFORMANCE IS AN ISSUE Grant Laidlaw , CEO of Air Conditioning And Refrigeration Academy ( ACRA ) and SAIRAC National Treasurer , comments that TVET institutions have no lack of students even if current applications are down , but there are massive performance issues . He gives the illustration of a Gauteng TVET , which has 12 000 students ( across multiple campuses ) – a considerable number to manage .
He notes that an audit conducted on their staff revealed that a troubling percentage of teachers were not qualified to do the training they are employed to do and were consequently described as having ‘ qualifications unknown ’.
Continued on page 5
www . refrigerationandaircon . co . za RACA Journal I April 2023 3