![Sample our Education journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5932/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Education.jpg"})
Abstract
In South Africa, a national peak structure, the Human Resource Development Council, led by the Deputy President and consisting of key Cabinet Ministers, senior leaders from organised labour and business, community representatives, professional bodies and experts from research and higher education, was established to enable high-level coordination at a strategic level. There is little evidence of achievements of this Council and its associated human resource development strategy. This paper suggests that human resource development strategies in South Africa have been more about posturing to be seen to be doing something, than actually planning the development of the skills of the nation, with one brief period when there was a focus on ‘plumbing’ – or dealing with specifically targeted ‘blockages’ in the skills ‘pipeline’. The underlying problem, we suggest, lies in the very notion of national human resource development, which seems on the one hand to be too broad and unwieldy a concept to be useful to governments; on the other hand, it seems to carry too much of the weight of economic development. These conceptual weaknesses, as well as bureaucratic weaknesses in South Africa, explain the poorly conceptualised structures and processes.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Eddie Webster, Volker Wedekind and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments which clarified our arguments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Levine (Citation2013) cites the Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman, who shows that during the Great Depression, when aggregate demand and the country’s job creation machinery had collapsed, workers were described as unadaptable and untrained, unable to respond to the opportunities which industry had to offer. A few years later, when preparations for Second World War gave the economy a massive boost, the ‘skills gap’ vanished, and those same workers who had been described as ‘unadaptable and untrained’ before were easily employed.
2. For example, see Chang (Citation2013) for an analysis of the repression of workers and unions in developmental states.
3. Marock, C., Soobrayan, B. Draft Report: Study to Ascertain How Best to Plan, Coordinate, Integrate, Manage, Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the National Human Resource Development Strategy for South Africa. 2007. This study was commissioned by the Department of Education, under the auspices of a human resource development team which reported to a cluster of Ministers involved in economic development.
4. Media Briefing by Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, 6 February 2006, Background Document: A Catalyst for Accelerated and Shared Growth-South Africa (ASGISA).
5. This paper is not the place to critique the economic policy approach, but see Mohamed (Citation2010) for an analysis of how the growth experienced in that period was in fact driven by financialisation, did not lead to jobs, and was unsustainable and unsustained.
6. The National Business Initiative is a voluntary coalition of South African and multinational companies that has invested in a number of areas including various aspects of the vocational education and skills formation systems in South Africa.
7. A fund set up through a payroll levy; a small percentage of the levy is allocated to this national fund for priority areas.
8. There are a number of different version of the document available, and the one on the Human Resource Development Council website is undated (accessed 11 June 2014), but the differences between versions do not appear to be substantial.
9. The following government ministers are members of the Council: Higher Education and Training, Basic Education, Trade and Industry, Labour, Science and Technology, Public Service and Administration, Economic Development, Performance Monitoring and Evaluation, National Planning Commission, Home Affairs, and Co-operative and Traditional Affairs.
10. Kraak, A. Review of Report: Human Resources Development Strategy for South Africa: 2009/10–2013/2014, Authored by Carmel Marock and Bobby Soobrayan, Singizi Consulting. 7 May 2008.
11. Council Member 6.
12. Council Member 1.
13. Council Member 2.
14. The National Planning Commission is led by the Minister in the Presidency: National Planning and is made up of 25 policy experts who are commissioned to ‘draft a long-term vision of where South Africa wishes to be in 15 years’ time’ (Republic of South Africa Citation2009, 22).
15. The Economic Development Department. (2010). The New Growth Path Framework; National Planning Commission. (2011). National Development Plan: Vision for 2030; The Department of Trade and Industry. (2014). Industrial Policy Action Plan 2014/15–2016/17: Economic Sectors and Employment Cluster.