Inkatha Freedom Party Statement By:
DR USHA ROOPNARAIN MP
IFP LABOUR SPOKESPERSON

15 November 2007

Recently, Government was pleased to hear that the skills crisis South Africa is facing is a global phenomenon. The danger lies in the presumption that this makes it less of a crisis. 

During Questions in the National Assembly yesterday, the Deputy President said that the current skills shortage was the result of recent strong growth in the economy which increased the demand for trained workers. However, this does not take cognisance of the low number of graduates being produced in South Africa.  

According to Statistics SA, only 9.1% of people over 20 completed degrees or diplomas this year, whereas international graduate output rates are at 30%.

The problem of low graduate output is not "recent". Between 1998 and 2004 only 8 900 of the 50 570 students enrolled at tertiary institutions graduated. That is a pass rate of only 17,7%.  

Also of concern is that the Global Talent Index Survey ranks South Africa bottom of the barrel in its proclivity to attract talent. This is worrying because the Deputy President said that skills are mobile and we expect some people to leave and others to come to South Africa.  

But how many are actually coming? Since we first started offering expedited entry into South Africa for people with priority skills, very few have taken us up on the offer. Between 2003 and 2005, 740 000 quota work permits were on offer, but only around 2 342 were issued. Last year, we reduced our offer to 47 600 permits. 

Yet South Africa is competing for skills with the rest of the world. We seriously need to up our game in attracting skills, and up the number of skilled people we produce. The sparkle of robust economic growth and keeping in step with global trends just cannot disguise the crisis we are facing. 

 
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Dr Usha Roopnarain MP: 082 923 1038
Liezl van der Merwe: 083 611 7470