Skills in South Africa: The journey towards credible planning

ABSTRACT

Since 1994 the state has instituted active labour market policies to redress the apartheid skills legacy. The skills planning challenge continues to be how to coordinate efforts for the provision of the right skills to support inclusive economic growth, ensuring an alignment is achieved between what is required in the labour market and the supply from the education and training system. This article traces the South African journey of skills planning from late apartheid until the current time period in 2014 through a historical analysis of the political economy. The analysis reflects on the relationship between state formation in South Africa and the role of the state in directing skills development, and in the more recent period how skills planning responds to both the demands of the economy and ameliorating the historical legacies of education and skills exclusion.

KEYWORDS:

• Skills planning mechanism
• labour market intelligence
• South Africa
• skills supply and demand

Acknowledgements

This article is based on the Labour Market Intelligence Partnership (LMIP) Project. The LMIP project was undertaken by a research consortium led by the Human Sciences Research Council.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹It should be noted that the South East Asian Tigers are an exception to this rule because they combined political and economic reforms.

Additional information

Funding

The LMIP project is funded by the Department of Higher Education and Training.