SA falling behind rest of Africa

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We are falling behind in education and skills development - economist.

Sapa - South Africa is falling behind the rest of the continent in education and skills development, an economist said on Thursday.

"SA's role in Africa has declined significantly over the last 15 years," Dr Azar Jammine of Econometrix told a joint World Bank and Department of Trade and Industry briefing in Benoni, east of Johannesburg.

"We've followed the world, but not Africa when it comes to growth.

"A recent African Union study showed that we were bottom of the list in numeracy and literacy compared with other African countries."

This, Jammine said, was eroding the country's competitive ability.

A lot of power in the country was concentrated in organised labour movements and this made business unwilling to take on more workers.

"Look at the Quarterly Labour Force Survey that came out on Tuesday. We are producing fewer and fewer new jobs and this to me is a crisis situation. We have to ask why we are not creating jobs in spite of economic growth."

Far too much power lay in the so-called "golden triangle" consisting of the government and parastatals, the labour movements and big business.

"South Africa pays mere lip service to small enterprises and having most of the power in the golden triangle means the country doesn't have the resilience it ought to have."    Jammine said in the rest of Africa, the role of governments was becoming smaller and small business was allowed to thrive.

"Instead South Africa sees more leadership by government."

Fortunately the private sector was thriving as skills had migrated there from the public sector.

"But this is not enough as there is not sufficient small business activity."

The country did not encourage people to work for themselves.

"Thriving small businesses actually create more jobs than bigger business."

Jammine said only two out of five adults were working and discouraged work seekers had increased over the past two years, much of this due to a lack of education.

"Our education system is at the heart of unemployment... in fact you can see how close unemployment and qualifications are linked, as the degreed have a much lower level of unemployment."

Whites had a higher level of education and therefore higher levels of employment, creating a "hugely skewed" income distribution which contributed towards crime."

While the average age of the country's civil engineers was 53, the average age of artisans was 55.

"This shows the danger that most of the people available to transfer skills are getting older and older and there won't be sufficient mentoring."

The worst examples of this could be seen at local government level.

"The SA Local Government Association has found that a third of councillors need adult education and training, and so there is an inability to deliver on services."

According to Jammine the solution to the economy's problems would be education and skills training and the breaking up of the monopoly enjoyed by government, trade unions and big business.

"This would free up the economy and get more people involved."