South Africa needs to produce its own engineering skills, but it is important for all stakeholders to work together and not in isolation, using the National Development Plan (NDP) as a guideline.

South African Institute of Electrical Engineers senior VP TC Madikane gave his presentation, titled ‘The sustainable value of developing local competence and skills for South Africa’, at the Civilution Congress, in Ekurhuleni, earlier this month.

He stated that the country had a 25% unemployment rate, with 39% of people living below the poverty line of R418 per person, per month, and 60% of people living in urban areas.

The NDP aims to reduce unemployment, recorded as being 25% in 2011, to 14% in 2020 and to 6% in 2030. However, Madikane stated that it was important to note that the dilemma facing African countries was that a large number of youth, aged between 15 and 35, were unemployed.

He added that the concepts of education and job creation were intertwined and an educated population meant more opportunity for employment.

The majority of South Africans do not have access to good-quality education and there are various initiatives to address some of these challenges. One of these include the National Skills Development Strategy III, which aims to improve the cooperation between universities, further education and training colleges, and sector education and training authorities (Setas),” Madikane stated.

Further, the Human Resource Development Strategy aims to overcome the shortage of supply in priority skills and to ensure that the youth have access to education and training to increase the available skills; twenty-one Setas cover every industry and occupation in South Africa.

Madikane added that the inadequate alignment of Seta output to the needs of the industry was notable.

The challenges that faced higher education institutions included a limited engineer intake and throughput and the poor recruitment and retention of lecturers.

“The role of industry is to offer in-service training to candidates and ensure corporate social investment, as well as to allow for experienced staff to participate in the advisory bodies of higher education institutions and mentor young graduates,” Madikane suggested.

He stressed that the value of developing skills in South Africa was important, as capabilities and sustainable development could be created and the development of better equipped candidates with mental fortitude could be promoted by ensuring that basic social needs were addressed and that individuals could become more confident and innovative through proper development.