Is the schooling system contributing to high unemployment in SA?

As an educationist who has specialised in policy studies and governance in education in South Africa, I ask the question above.

There is a problem with the schooling system. The policies of colonial and apartheid regimes aimed at making black people semi-skilled or unskilled. Education is a powerful economic tool which is why the 1976 Soweto uprising and the 1980s countrywide school boycotts were against these policies.

As a student then, we demanded “quality and equal education”. Some of the degrees/diplomas are ‘skeletons with no flesh’ (no skills) which contributes to the high unemployment rate. We need to move away from the traditional academic curriculum of apartheid to a more technical and vocational one to open employment doors.

Today we talk of a high unemployment rate and criminals (amaphara) in black communities, but our black youth need a technical and vocational schooling system. Adults and school dropouts must be catered for in community education and colleges like they formerly were. This can address unemployment, poverty and crime.

Technical and vocational, trade schools, agricultural schools, commercial schools etc that can equip children are needed. If we can establish these in areas like Sada which is severely poverty-stricken, it can make a great difference.

Skills like welding, panel beating, plumbing, electrical engineering, woodwork, automotive engineering and agriculture can address this problem.

A good example is Zimbabwe in particular. They are self employed. President Robert Mugabe equipped them with skilled education. Not all black children will be white collar professionals. A skills-based curriculum can also be the answer to the annual cry of grade 12 results that haunt many school principals.

I was excited when education MEC Fundile Gade praised communities that proposed projects for the closed schools to counter the school rationalisation programme (Umhlobo Wenene). That is what Mhlothana Restoration Committee proposed at the closed historic Mhlotshana High School in Sada in 2019. I always ask what is the point of offering technology as a subject from grades 6 to 9 if there are no technical schools in areas like

Sada?

Long term and sustainable success in life requires key elements such as education and skills that are in demand. No doubt the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR), topics of skills reorientation are becoming more and more relevant. Can we jump to 4IR without solidifying our foundation in rural and township schooling systems?

In the old days, homelands like Transkei had education and training centres. Several offered skills like plumbing, bricklaying, welding, painting, plastering, electrical, fitting and turning, woodwork, carpentry etc.

Short apprenticeship courses, crash courses, intensive programmes by the departments of public works, social development, economic affairs, tourism and industry need to be introduced to address the youth unemployment rate.

We need not bemoan the scars of the Bantu Education Act of 1953 but heal its wounds by making corrections. The time has come for national stock taking of where we stand in technical education. We need comprehensive schools in areas like Sada.

Former finance minister Tito Mboweni emphasised that South Africa had to ensure its education system was compatible with the needs of the changing economy. Newly appointed minister of finance, Enoch Godongwana also emphasised that South Africans should be equipped with skills instead of depending on grants. The sooner this idea is implemented the better.