PEET VAN AARDT AND BRIAN SIBANDA|  

South African student voices have largely remained unheard in formal discussions around COVID-19. A pandemic that should not be put to waste, COVID-19, on some podiums, is seen as laying the groundwork for germination of seeds of change.

The students in this collection of stories by the Initiative for Creative African Narratives (iCAN, a project within the Academy for Multilingualism at the University of the Free State in South Africa) have refused to be silenced amid this pandemic.

A World Gone Mad is a collection of 15 stories written by the students. All come from rural villages or low income, highly populated settlements on the edge of metropolitan areas (also known as “townships”). Some of them wrote their stories on their cell phones.

In March 2020, when South African president Cyril Ramaphosa announced the country’s first lockdown, students had to evacuate campus and return to their homes. During this lockdown, citizens were not allowed to travel, shops had to close and people had to remain indoors.

The strict rules created fear in people from densely populated areas such as townships, and within the first week the country saw a 30% increase in gender-based violence compared to the previous year.

The students reflecting on the experiences of this life in lockdown are predominantly undergraduate students from all disciplines at the University of the Free State. The project is a decolonisation initiative by the university that motivates students to write short stories that can be published and then used in a transformed curriculum.

The iCAN, now in its fourth year, has published five anthologies. The majority of texts are based on real life experiences, but many students submit purely fictional stories. We decided to include the COVID-19 stories in a separate collection.

Writing can be used as a coping mechanism, a way to digest the world around us. We found that the stories have drawn attention to the experiences of students during the COVID moment.

The stories

In one story, My COVID-19 Nightmare, the writer illustrates the anxieties and prejudice encountered in a small village. When the main character experiences strange behaviour from her neighbours, she learns why on Facebook: One of the Maswanganyi daughters has Corona. She was seen a few days back in hospital coughing to death and she was admitted by the doctor. Now she is back and has infected her whole family. Be careful around them, guys. #staysafe #covid19 #stayathome.

The writer was shocked. She had gone to hospital due to a cough she developed the night before when she wanted to clear her room from mosquitoes with pesticide.

Internet connection and device access has highlighted the gap between the rich and the poor students in South Africa. In the story The COVID-19 Stumbling Block the protagonist is forced to return to the densely populated township of Diepsloot, Gauteng.

She thought she saw her future jumping out of the window when the university introduced an online learning system. She saw it as a waste of time; she had no electronic device other than her cell phone.

Other themes include greeting a loved one at a rushed funeral (The 60 Minute Farewell), one’s belief in God being challenged (Faith is Not Under Lockdown) and having to abandon campus life (A Story of House Akasia).

One student relied on his imagination, painting a bleak picture of a post-COVID world where virtual reality has become safer than real life (Death of the Human Race).

The students also addressed the pandemic within the pandemic: gender-based violence. In Ngenxa Kamama the story is about a mother and daughter trapped inside their house during lockdown with a violent father.

Hope

In A World Gone Mad, the students speak for themselves, presenting the world with an authentic expression of the lived experience. It’s one that negates a Western, canonised form of thinking that views the philosophies and literatures of the global North as the only intellectual authority.

It is our aim to ensure these stories make a considerable contribution to the curriculum and the ongoing efforts to reconstruct knowledge and a sense of being in an effort to decolonise higher education in South Africa.

Some of the texts will form part of the extensive reading component of the English Academic Literacy courses at the university, where students will do online quizzes on the stories. The idea is that students will learn about each other and from each other.

The stories are also a contribution to decolonising languages. In the English language written stories, students have tamed the language to their advantage; they have used it to carry the weight of their experiences. The one written in isiZulu also tells us that these indigenous languages, which are often marginalised and tokenised, are equally valid in carrying lived experiences and have space in higher education.

Lastly, the stories give hope in surviving the pandemics and gesture towards a post-COVID future that is socially and cognitively just.

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NALEDI SHOTA|

The Gauteng MEC for education, Panyaza Lesufi, has said that his department has increased compensation to school fee exemptions that are granted to parents. 

Lesufi said this while delivering his budget speech on Thursday. He said the department acknowledged that during the times of Covid-19 some parents in middle and low-income bands might find it difficult to keep up with the costs related to their children’s education. 

“We will use this budget to also compensate for the shock to education financing that comes from families’ own spending on education and fees. This will not only impact fee-charging schools but we, also, know from past crises that income shocks are likely to lead to many children dropping out of school or not returning when schools reopen.

“We welcome the emergency funding provided by the national government to schools to assist them with paying their SGB-appointed staff in the 2020/21 financial year. But this was a short-term stop-gap measure. Our schools are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. We have increased our provision for compensating schools for fee exemptions granted,” said Lesufi. 

READ: SIU freezes accounts of decontamination companies contracted by GDE

He said his department has seen a budget cut of R135 million from R53,5 billion in 2020/21 to R53,4 billion in 2021/22. 

The department continues to spend the largest chunk of its budget on salaries which account for 75% (R39 billion) of the total budget. 

The rest of the spend is as follows:An amount of R6,1-billion is for transfers and subsidies to schools Public ordinary schools will receive R38.8-billion Public special schools will get R4.5-billion Infrastructure development has been allocated R1.61-billion Examination and education-related services will get R 1.7-billionIndependent schools will receive R980-millionEarly childhood development has been allocated R1.2-billion 

In his speech, Lesufi said the department’s “single biggest pressure” is the lack and the state of school infrastructure. 

“Over the last seven or more years we have maximised the utilisation of schools to the optimum and beyond reasonable accommodation in mainly township schools. Township schools have had to accommodate learners above their capacity, including the use of specialist rooms, due to their proximity to informal and new settlements.

“Suburban schools have also reached their capacity as a result of the growth of black middle class in existing and new middle-income housing areas. The number of schools built per year is not meeting demand and annually there is a growing backlog of new infrastructure,” he said. 

READ: Lesufi must fix burnt down classrooms at Joburg school

 He said the department is working with the Gauteng Infrastructure Financing Agency to find alternate funding to deliver additional schools to meet demand.  

Lesufi also mentioned that this year alone the province has had to close 20 schools due to Covid-19 cases, and also that 1077 teachers had tested positive for the virus as well as 1977 learners. 

He said the virus has impacted on teaching and learning and that there has been a rise to learning losses. 

“Outside the classroom, learning losses may translate into even greater long-term challenges… In the absence of any intervention, the learning losses arising from the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to have a long-term compounding negative effect on many children’s future well-being. These learning losses could translate into less access to higher education, lower labour market participation, and lower future earnings,”he said. 

The MEC said the department has also had to refocus its budget and adjust it to respond to the pandemic by, amongst others, supplying running water and sanitation facilities to schools, provide more furniture in order to adhere to social distancing in class and also provide personal protective equipment to schools. 

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NALEDI SHOTA| 

Basic education minister, Angie Motshekga, says she has not ruled out that schools might close as Covid-19 infection rises. However, she said, for now the basic education sector has taken a decision that schools will not close. 

Motshekga was speaking at a press briefing on Saturday afternoon, where she also announced that from Wednesday the sector will start its vaccination programme. 

Inside Education reported last week that the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) had called for the immediate closure of schools as more and more learners test positive for Covid-19. 

READ: Malema gives Motshekga seven days to shut down schools as Covid-19 cases rise in children

EFF president, Julius Malema, said at the time that they were giving Motshekga seven days to shut down schools or they would do so themselves.

On Saturday Motshekga said following a special meeting of the Council of Educators (CEM), teacher unions, school governing bodies and other stakeholders there was a consensus that schools must remain open.

The CEM is a forum where MECs of education, heads of departments, minister and director-general sit.

“At all times, we follow the advice of public health experts, who are supporting us in the management of the impact of Covid-19. We believe that schools must remain open and in saying so we are not insensitive to the concerns raised about the rising infections. 

“The position is that we continue to handle Covid cases according to the differentiated strategy, on a province by province, school-by-school basis. While there are disruptions in the sector, the majority of our schools remain fairly stable,” said Motshekga. 

Motshekga said any disruption that may arise from those who want to close schools is a matter for the police “it is not my matter”. 

“I take my cue, with due respect, based on facts and nothing else. So if parents said children must go to school, I am happy; if teachers said they will be at school, I am happy; if principals say we feel that we can continue, I am happy. That is where I get my mandate, that is where I get my guidance from,” she said. 

Motshekga said in a meeting on Saturday morning all provinces agreed that any infection is one too many but that the current situation the sector finds itself in does not warrant that schools should be closed. 

“This week in the information that we collected 100 schools were reported to have been disrupted with the majority of them being in Gauteng, and we are saying we have 25 517 schools [but] 100 schools were affected so 25 400 something schools were still open.

“And we just felt on the basis of facts there would not be any grounds for a full-scale school closure and that we should continue having a differentiated approach.

“But we are also not ruling out that if anytime during the week advised by your ministerial advisory committee from health, advised by the National Command Council, advised by Cabinet we will resist closing schools,” said Motshekga. 

READ: Unions wait in bated breath for details on the vaccination of educators

Vaccination programme

Motshekga announced that 582 000 people in the basic education sector will be vaccinated from Wednesday until 8 July. This number includes all teachers in public and private schools, all administrative and support staff in public schools. 

The number also includes staff of teacher unions, officials in district, provincial and the national department of education. 

Motshekga mentioned that people who had contracted Covid-19 in the past 30 days or those who received a flu shot in the past 14 days will not be eligible to vaccinate. However, she said that arrangements would be made that they vaccinate with the next group of people that will be vaccinated in the country. 

The minister said it was not mandatory for those who did not want to be vaccinated to do so. 

However, she said those teachers who are working from home because they have comorbidities if they chose not to vaccinate they will still  be expected back at school. 

“In the sector we have thousands of teachers that are home because of comorbidities and after this round there won’t be any opportunity for us to give exemptions. We will expect everybody to come back whether you have comorbidities or what, we will expect you to come back to work because you would have been given the opportunity to be protected in one way or the other,” said Motshekga. 

Acting director general in the department, Granville Whittle, said 300 000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccination arrived on Thursday and that an additional 280 000 doses will be made available for the sector.

READ: GDE concerned about the rising number of Covid-19 cases at schools in the province

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NYAKALLO TEFU|

Gauteng Education MEC, Panyaza Lesufi, has said all information about the shooting of a school principal at Buyani Primary in Finetown, Johannesburg, will be forwarded to police for investigation.

The principal was shot dead on the school premises on Friday morning. 

Lesufi visited the school today to get information on what transpired during the shooting.

“I had an opportunity to go through the footage because the school has cameras and it is extremely disturbing to witness such barbaric behavior happening in our school environment,” said Lesufi.

Lesufi said there is a sector we all know that is familiar with killings and it is clear that within the education space there are those that bring that sector behavior into schools.

“From the video footage one can tell that this was a hit that someone was assigned to do, we strongly condemn this,” added Lesufi.

READ: Lesufi Shocked At Fatal Shooting Of Grade 6 Learner In Katlehong

The 53-year-old principal, Lazarous Baloyi, was gunned down by an unknown assailant.

Baloyi was the chairperson of a branch at the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) in the area.

“We want to send our condolences to the family, teachers and teacher union Sadtu and to the community at large,” said Lesufi.

Police have launched a manhunt hunt for the person(s) involved in the brutal killing of the school principal.

Lesufi said in March he received communication from some of the Pinetown residents raising concerns about the school and the principal’s qualifications.

“The district was forwarded the email to intervene and they did intervene and met with the people who raised concerns, so in the last three months we thought everything was sorted out, until today,” said Lesufi.

Lesufi said they will hand over the information to the police to establish what exactly happened.

“We are in discussion with the district to provide counselling and psychosocial support to the educators, learners and the family,” said Lesufi.

READ: Gunmen Posing As Parents Shoot Teacher At Durban School As Harrowing Start To New School Year Continues

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NYAKALLO TEFU| 

The Eastern Cape Department of Education says it needs to improve its teaching and standards on Mathematics and Science for grade 12’s in the province.

The MEC for Education, Fundile Gade, held a media briefing on Thursday where he focused on the strides the department has made to ensure good governance and school functionality.

The mid-year briefing comes at a time where it was decided that matriculants will not be writing June examinations but instead will have assessments.

Gade said the province aims to get a 40% improvement on Mathematics and Science subjects in all its districts then it can achieve what it wants.

Adding that the Eastern Cape is one of the provinces with the biggest number of students registered for Mathematics and Science.

READ: North West learner flies school flag high in a Maths competition

“Out of 15 000 enrolled grade 12’s in OR Tambo Costal 8 000 are doing maths and physics. Which means if focus is on Maths and Science in all districts, we will get what we want, we need to up the game on those subjects,” said Gade.

The MEC announced that the province will be having additional learning opportunities and curriculum support material for learners across the province.

“We will be conducting learning through radio, visual platforms (television) across the province to deal with the divide,” said Gade.

“We are a rural province but equally we are investing more in ITC to close that gap,” he said.

Learners and educators have had to adjust to learning and teaching since the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak.

The MEC said the plan is to ensure that learners continue to engage in the curriculum on a continuous basis to limit the learning losses which arises due to school closures.

Gade said his department suggest that there be a centralized learning, where if a maths lesson is taking place at 10am, all learners are tuned in at the same time to keep everyone one the same track. 

“Hence I am saying, the sequencing of timetabling of all subjects can give us the milage that we want, but it can only happen if we up the game on anywhere and anytime e-learning solutions to ensure we connect all high schools through broadcasting lessons,” said the MEC.

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NYAKALLO TEFU| 

The Department of Health announced on Thursday that over 400 000 educators will be vaccinated by the end of June 2021.

The department said 300 000 Johnson and Johnson (J&J) vaccines will arrive in the country on Friday.

On Thursday, the health portfolio committee held a briefing where the department’s technical advisor Dr Aquina Thulare said they want to get the vaccines tested and ready for use by next week.

Thulare said the J&J vaccines are set to arrive in the country by this week, following which, the department will meet with provincial health departments to finalise plans. He said distribution to provinces across the country is expected to start on Tuesday.

“The target group includes teachers, administrative and support staff at all schools, irrespective of age,” said Thulare.

Inside Education reported that there were delays in the vaccination of teachers after the US Food and Drug Administration ordered those 60 million doses be discarded with fears of contamination at the manufacturing plant.

READ: Unions wait in bated breath for details on the vaccination of educators

As a result, two million doses of the vaccine stored in the Eastern Cape were destroyed.

Thulare said the Department of Health aims to vaccinate educators across the public and private sectors, school governing body members and administrative staff over a period of10 working days from Tuesday 22 June.

Thulare said the timelines are especially critical because the vaccines must all be used before the expiry date of 11 July.

“After the vaccination of educators, when the next vaccine batch arrives at the end of June – police, soldiers and prison warders will be next in line,” he said.

The department said it expects batches of 700,000 and 500,000 to land in the country. However, it said the dates are not yet set.

The vaccination come when the country is currently in the third wave of the coronavirus where numbers continue to rise.

In the past 24 hours 11 767 new cases were reported with 100 deaths across the country.

READ: Basic education minister says not to worry about the return of school children to full-time classes

The hardest hit province is Gauteng with the highest number of cases reported on a daily which has resulted in the Gauteng Health Department temporarily suspending visiting hours at all health facilities in the province.

Spokesperson for the MEC of health in Gauteng Kwara Kekana said hospitals are under pressure with the number of Covid-19 cases in the province.

Teacher unions across the country have demanded that educators be vaccinated before primary school learners return to schools on a full-time basis from 26 July 2021.

“We want to consult with the department that teachers should be next in the line following those aged 60 and above to get vaccinated for Covid-19,” said National Professional Teachers Organization of South Africa’s Basil Manuel.

Manuel had stated that the union was concerned about the mental health of educators as 100% capacity causes panic in people during the time of the pandemic.

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NALEDI SHOTA|

Parliament’s portfolio committee on social development has called for better care and treatment of children living with disabilities. 

This is after the committee learned while in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga that some children with disabilities do not go to school and are instead locked in back rooms by their parents. 

These revelations were made to the committee while it was in the area for public hearings into the Children’s Amendment Bill. 

“The Bill is intended to resolve numerous challenges relating to the welfare of children and those include parental responsibilities of unmarried fathers, child marriages, services to children born to foreign parents, and unaccompanied migrant children,” according to the committee. 

One of the participants in the hearings, Mofenyi Tshilwane told the committee that parents of children with disabilities need support. 

“It is not because the parents like the conditions the children live in but they don’t have support, they need to be empowered,” he said. 

READ: Sexual assaults and violence at South Africa’s schools

Acting chairperson of the committee Nkhensani Bilankulu also said that the committee had learned that learners are victims of rape and the perpetrators are teachers who never face consequences because they are defended by teacher unions. 

“Teacher unions can never be justified in defending alleged rapists in schools, if there are cases of such need to be reported to the police. We also learn that some educators are protected by management due to the importance of learning areas they teach. The committee appealed to community members that they need to be vigilant when it comes to issues and safety of children at schools,” said Bilankulu.

Last month, the South African Human Rights Commission held public hearings in Limpopo looking at corporal punishment, sexual relations between teachers and learners and bullying. 

Those hearings also heard that teachers who have sexual relations with learners are protected by unions or principals fail to report the misconduct to the department of education. 

Bilankulu said schools need to be a safe space for learners and: “… In cases where rapes have occurred, the educators’ code of conduct needs to prevail with proper follow up of such incidents by all stakeholders, the South African Police Service, school management, School Governing Bodies and teacher unions”.

Early this year Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, gazetted regulations that state that if a teacher has been found guilty and dismissed for having sexual relations with a learner that teacher will be banned for life from the teaching profession. 

Bilankulu promised the residents of Bushbuckridge that the issues they had raised during the  hearings will be escalated to the relevant  government departments. 

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NYAKALLO TEFU| 

A grade 12 learner from Coligny Secondary School in the North West won the final round of a Virtual Mathematics Competition (VMC2021).

18-year-old Boitumelo Mohulatsi like other learners submitted his videos to the ‘Mthethwamatics Facebook’ page solving various mathematical problems.

VMC founder Dr Simo Mthethwa said the main aim of the competition is to educate the society about some principles, fundamental concepts and theorems in mathematics.

Mthethwa said knowledge of mathematics is not a pre-requisite to participate because the aim is to educate

“The learning component of this competition is done through allowing participants to consult with whomever that may be able to assist them, be it a teacher, tutor or parent.

“Once the participant is confident to have grasped the concept then the video (2 mins) detailing the solution should be conducted and submitted to them.

 “There is no limit to the tools and creativity that may be used to present the solution or explanation,” said Mthethwa.

READ: STEM: Extra Maths On A Mobile Device: A South African Study Shows It’s Not That Simple

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, most competitions and activities at schools across the country are being done virtually, where possible.

The VMC is normally done through seminars and various educational programmes.

The competition was divided into Grade R to Grade 12 according to South African phases. Each phase had a  problem/challenge to solve and explain.

Mohulatsi said the competition has taught him that he can do better.

“With each challenge we solve, not just my own, I learned a lot from others. It actually taught me that it’s not about what you know but from sharing and understanding concepts that makes you better”, said Mohulatsi.

READ: Maths and Science Tutor Gives Hope To Students In Soshanguve

MEC for Education in the North West Mmaphefo Matsemela has congratulated Mohulatsi, saying she has been cheering him on.

“I am happy for Boitumelo’s win. His dedication and passion for Mathematics proved his determination. This certainly paves a way for him towards his tertiary studies and I hope that his passion for mathematics is an inspiration to his peers as well,” said Matsemela.

The competition also aims to promote mathematics to a wider audience, over and above schools.

“We intend to do this through asking participants/contestant to explain necessary concepts in mathematics,” said Mthethwa.

Excited about his win, Mohulatsi said his motivation comes from online advanced mathematics he does when he is not at school.

“I would advise my peers to take maths as a challenge. Forget about your background or school you come from, focus on the solving a challenge. That’s the fun thing about mathematics,” said Mohulatsi.

Matsemela said this is an achievement for Mohulatsi, his school and his peers, and wished Mohulatsi many happy returns.

READ: Soweto Grade 12 Pupil Receives A Bronze Medal At 61st International Maths Ambassador

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STEPHANIE ALLAIS|

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected not only how we live, think and work but also how we acquire skills. This is particularly crucial for young people, large numbers of whom are excluded from labour market. South Africa’s latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey showed joblessness for those aged between 15 and 34 at 46,3%.

To address the challenges of skills provision and acquisition, policy makers and researchers have set their sights on the vocational education and training system. But the view that this alone is the answer to solve existing labour market crises is flawed for three reasons.

First, it ignores the main problem – the lack of demand for labour. Second, it highlights a lack of understanding of how skills are developed, and that the nature of the economy shapes the nature of skills produced.

And third, it disregards the fact that the existing weaknesses of the vocational and education training system are caused by lack of labour demand and insufficient analysis of the role of the economy in shaping skill formation.

The relationships between education, poverty and inequality in South Africa are complex. Labour markets are a key determinant of inequality. But lack of demand for skilled labour outweighs lack of skilled workers. Nonetheless, building the skills of the workforce remains a crucial part of economic development and reconstruction.

READ: South Africa’s youth unemployment crisis – a ticking time bomb

In terms of skills development, a complex array of institutions and policies have been established since 1994 in an attempt to improve relationships between labour markets and education providers.

Incentives have been created to encourage employers to provide training to their workers and pre-employed people.

However, these policies and institutions have met with many challenges.

One is that the institutional environment is now complex and expensive, without much visible improvement in the system. There’s little to show for years of reform, as well as an extensive range of donor initiatives to support projects, policy reforms, and institutional reform.

One example is the Technical and Vocational Education and Training system. This has been the subject of many reforms. But policy makers and industry continue to argue that the system remains weak and that the colleges don’t meet their needs.

On top of this the qualifications system is enormously complex. Layers of new qualifications and ways of designing qualifications have been added, without removing the previous ones.

Against this backdrop, our research set out to understand the impact of Covid-19 on skills formation in South Africa.

The pandemic has heightened existing weaknesses in the system. Few vocational colleges have the necessary facilities for online learning. Also, few students have the prior educational background that makes online learning workable.

Only 10 out of 50 colleges had learner management systems enabling online teaching and learning. Some sought to make tutorials available on social media. However, often lecturers didn’t have their own data or even a quiet place to teach from. Learners faced the same problems.

READ: Students suffered mental health during lockdown, survey reveals

The second area affected by the pandemic is workplace placements. As a result of the pandemic, companies have been unable to accommodate learners. This has similarly been a long standing challenge.

A third affected area is funding: the skills system has lost about R6.1 billion as a result of suspension of the skills levy during the lockdown and other factors. The levy was suspended as part of tax relief to companies during the pandemic.

A further issue affecting the skills development system is the qualification system. What’s lacking is a balance between shorter training programmes and long-term formal qualifications. The advocates of micro-credentials – these are industry aligned short courses which have a narrow focus on preparation for work – are suggesting them as the solution to this lack of balance.

The Quality Council on Trades and Occupations – established in 2010 to set standards for and quality assure qualifications linked to a trade or occupation – has recently reconfigured occupational qualifications. These include revisiting the formal requirement for workplace experience, which learners now simply cannot get (and most could not get before COVID-19).

It has also introduced new regulations to address the need for short programmes which can only be accredited as a “part qualification”, which is constituted by credits within a full qualification. Full qualifications are now defined in terms of number of credits.

This step sought to address the proliferation of part qualifications that didn’t lead to a full qualification, as well as qualifications of varied sizes. But it created the unintended consequence of negating the possibility that industry associations could determine the need for a short programme that is accredited and that enables the graduate to access a specific opportunity in the workplace.

Thus, the organising logic is based on where qualifications exist rather than on where demand is.

The lack of success is partly due to the flawed idea that market mechanisms will ensure more responsive, agile, demand-led Technical and Vocational Education and Training, using qualifications, including “micro-credentials”, as a policy lever.

The focus is on the need for agility and short-term relevance. Reforms have emphasised employers specifying the skills or competences they require, and education and training institutions being given funding for courses that attempt to lead to these specific competences.

This should, according to advocates, enable educational institutions to provide only the required competences and thereby enable “consumers” – employers or individuals trying to equip themselves in labour markets – to purchase only the “bits” that they want without having to sit through long educational programmes.

In this magical world vocation and education training will ensure that:

curricula are decentralised and therefore responsive,employers can specify their needs, andboth public and private providers can be held accountable as their programmes can be measured against the competences delivered.

But this is a simplistic supply and demand notion. Policy reforms based on it take no account of how skills are actually developed for work in the real economy.

The approach also works against building strong, robust, healthy institutions.

South Africa needs to focus on supporting institutions, building partnerships with employers, and ensuring that thinking about skills is incorporated into industrial policy processes.

Our research highlights the need to think about the quality of work and organisation of workplaces as well as skills development inside industrial policy and inside different economic sector strategies. This also requires having formal providers of vocational education and training to be embedded inside the industries.

One implication of this is the need for industry- or sector-specific and not general strategies for skills development.

In addition, education institutions should offer broad vocational and education training qualifications that include components of general education and components of locally needed skills.

At the same time, we need better funding mechanisms for shorter accredited programmes that are recognised by employers and professional associations, and less formal, responsive short courses.

This requires deeper relationships between colleges and employers. It also requires more support for institutions providing the training and a set of qualifications that focus on occupational streams and clusters.

Finally and most importantly, skills policy needs to be in line with an economic recovery focused on jobs.

Skills planning needs to be incorporated inside the industrial policy process instead of an add-on.

READ: Ramaphosa has no plausible strategy for reducing youth unemployment

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DUMA GQUBULE|

In the face of soaring unemployment, which has created an unviable society, and brutal energy blackouts in the middle of winter, President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced two structural reform gimmicks that will do little to resolve the country’s immediate economic and power crises.

According to Stats SA’s latest survey, the expanded unemployment rate for black Africans was 47.9% during the first quarter of 2021. For black African females it was 51.5%. In the Eastern Cape and Limpopo, the unemployment rates for people of all races were 49.6% and 49.5% respectively. The expanded youth unemployment rate was a staggering 74.7%.

Since December 2008, the economy has created only 226,000 jobs and the labour force has increased by 5.7-million people. The number of unemployed people has soared by 5.5- million to 11.4-million people.

Ramaphosa’s gimmicks for the crisis have delivered nothing.

READ: Ramaphosa has no plausible strategy for reducing youth unemployment

The jobs summit agreement of October 2018 was supposed to create 275,000 jobs a year. The Youth Employment Scheme was supposed to create 1-million jobs. It has created 55,000 so-called work opportunities.

We do not know how many of these people are still working.

The decision to increase the licensing threshold for embedded generation projects to 100MW was billed as a game-changer that would kick-start the government’s economic recovery plan and help with the energy crisis. The decision will create investment of R75bn and new power capacity of 5,000MW between 2022 and 2024. That is equivalent to only 0.5% of GDP a
year. This is no game-changer.

Austerity measures of R264.9bn over the next three years — 0.5% of GDP in 2020/2021, 1.5% of GDP in 2022/2023 and 2.5% of GDP 2023/2024 — and leakages through imports will cancel out the impact of the small increase in investment. Let us be clear: the government does not have an infrastructure-led recovery plan. It has committed only 0.1% of GDP a year for the next three years to a R100bn infrastructure fund that the president announced in 2018.

READ: Youth unemployment: Is the solution a change in mindset?

Since the new capacity will be available only in 2024 or 2025, the president’s announcement will not tackle the immediate crisis of energy blackouts. Eskom’s year-to-date energy availability factor has collapsed to 60.78%. Regularly, about a third of the utility’s capacity is down.

The announcement will also accelerate the utility’s death spiral.

What the government has given to the private sector, it will take from Eskom, which will lose its key customers. The decline in sales revenues, which have collapsed by 12.5% since 2014, will accelerate. There will be higher price increases to cover for the reduced utilisation of generation capacity. The government will have to increase its bailouts to Eskom. The liberalisation of the sector will increase energy inequality in a country where the rich have already left public services such as health, education and security.

A few large companies will be able to exit the grid, but 224,000 formal small and medium enterprises will not have this option. There will be two energy systems — one for rich households and a few large companies who will have 24/7 power, and another one for millions of South Africans who will continue to rely on a mismanaged Eskom and experience blackouts.

READ: South Africa’s youth unemployment – a ticking time bomb

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