{"id":31333,"date":"2020-01-10T11:41:30","date_gmt":"2020-01-10T11:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/?p=31333"},"modified":"2020-01-17T09:43:38","modified_gmt":"2020-01-17T09:43:38","slug":"vocational-training-a-viable-alternative-to-matric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2020\/01\/10\/vocational-training-a-viable-alternative-to-matric\/","title":{"rendered":"Vocational training a viable alternative to Matric"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This week saw the release of the Matric results. And just like every year, there has been controversy surrounding what many refer to as the pass rate versus the \u2018real\u2019 pass rate. But as Gideon Potgieter, CEO of Resolution Circle says, South Africans may need to change their mindsets that getting your Grade 12 qualification and going on to university for a degree is the be-all and end-all of finding a job.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

People tend to forget that having a Grade 9 allows a learner to continue their studies in post-school education and training that can be at a Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) college. In fact, overseas it is an accepted course of action with countries like The Netherlands and Germany taking great pride in the skills gained at a TVET level. To the uninitiated, TVET focuses on artisanal skills such as mechanics, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, welders, hairdressers and chefs. Furthermore, TVET also enables the learner to further their studies by opening more opportunities to gain additional qualifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So,\nwhy does the perception persist in the country that learners must matriculate,\ngo to university for a degree and then find a job? This is not an easy question\nto answer, but it can be attributed to how parents and the learners themselves\nare not fully aware of the potential of vocational training. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly,\nif the learner wants to go into a specialist field such as becoming an\naccountant, lawyer, doctor or engineer, this is the required course of action.\nBut if the focus is not on attaining such a qualification, why go to university\nin the first place? Potentially, this can leave the student (or parents) with\nsignificant debt and a degree that they might not be able to get full value\nfrom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nmany developed economies, only a small percentage of the top learners go to\nuniversity with the majority pursuing vocational training. The point is that\nlearners do not have to spend two additional years in school if an\ninternationally accepted alternative path is open to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preparing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More\nrecently, the government has been pushing a technology-driven agenda to meet\nthe needs of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Some might argue that this\nis heavily reliant on degreed students. And yet, the digital world requires\nmore than just office workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) speaks of the concept of design, conceptualise, implement and maintain. The first two focus on engineers while the latter two have technicians and artisans in mind. MIT proposes a 1:4:10 ratio between engineers, technicians and artisans to make things work in the digital future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irrespective\nof how connected and technology-enabled society becomes, there will always be a\nneed for artisans. The potential of automation, Artificial Intelligence and Machine\nLearning can only do so much. Human resources, especially those with technical\nand vocational skills, will remain integral to how we live and work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally,\nlearners at Grade 9 level already have sufficient knowledge to learn how to\nbuild and programme robots. Having the language skills in place to master\ngrammar and spelling to code properly and a basic understanding of maths form\nthe foundation of going into Robotics and even the Internet of Things.\nFurthermore, there is a global shortage of draughtsmen. Following Grade 9,\nlearners can go on a vocational path to get the qualifications for both these\ncareer choices that will be essential in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Already,\ntraining providers have started developing short programmes and courses built\naround 4IR. Given how many of the jobs of the future do not exist yet, this\nprovides learners with exciting opportunities to be at the forefront of\ninnovation and go beyond many of the traditional options available to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nwhen compared to other countries when it comes to vocational training, South\nAfrica performs better than middle income countries like Brazil and Turkey,\naccording to the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Private sector importance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Refocusing\non vocational training is not only the responsibility of parents, learners and\ngovernment. The private sector also has a critical role to play in this regard.\nCurrently, the challenge for those doing vocational training is what happens\nafter the theory is completed. Yes, students will receive a certificate but\nstill lack vital job experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nthese students want to go into formal apprenticeships to register as artisans,\nthere are not that many opportunities available to them. More needs to be done\nto change this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\nmuch of this comes down to securing the required corporate funding to give more\nstudents access to experiential training that is currently highly\noversubscribed. From a business perspective, sponsoring these initiatives make\nsense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nassists corporates with their B-BBEE compliance and enable them to claim back a\npercentage of this expenditure against their skills development levy payments\nover the course of the financial year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These\nclaims apply whether they send their own employees for upskilling, or if they\nsponsor learners with their workshop and experiential training programmes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Examples\nof where new programmes have been launched include the YES4Youth programme that\naddresses the shortage of internships to a certain extent. This sees large\ncorporates committing to taking on interns, but it is still limited given the\nnumber of students in the country. More companies need to come on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nthen there is Harambee that offers an excellent programme for unemployed Grade\n12s. It works with corporates to identify their needs when it comes to the\nskills required in the workplace. Harambee then matches this to its database of\nunemployed learners and provide them with training programmes to give them the\nskills to fill those holes in the private sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No\nmatter how you look at it, this is not an easy problem to solve. Skills\ndevelopment must remain at the forefront of the government and corporate\nagenda. But what is vital is that parents and learners realise that there are\noptions open to them other than only relying on Grade 12 and a university\ndegree. The economic growth of the country depends on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week saw the release of the Matric results. And just like every year, there has been controversy surrounding what many refer to as the pass rate versus the \u2018real\u2019 pass rate. But as Gideon Potgieter, CEO of Resolution Circle says, South Africans may need to change their mindsets that getting your Grade 12 qualification […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":31338,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4950,367,6,399,19,260,9059,10675,262],"tags":[7290,386,826,12223,510,1002,2559,12218,12225,155,392,12222,12217,11223,12219,1341,453,12221,8512,776,12220,12224],"class_list":["post-31333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-education","category-insights","category-more-news","category-regional-news","category-regional-news-newsletter","category-south-africa","category-thought-leadership","category-used","tag-4ir","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-automation","tag-b-bbee","tag-brazil","tag-fourth-industrial-revolution","tag-germany","tag-gideon-potgieter","tag-harambee","tag-internet-of-things","tag-machine-learning","tag-massachusetts-institute-of-technology","tag-matric","tag-mit","tag-resolution-circle","tag-robotics","tag-south-africa","tag-technical-and-vocational-education-training","tag-the-netherlands","tag-turkey","tag-tvet","tag-yes4youth"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31333"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31509,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31333\/revisions\/31509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}