Much rests on the revival of apprenticeships, and not only in terms of youth employment. Sustainable economic growth may well depend on the success of this tried-and-tested way of transferring skills to a new generation.
The apparent realisation by the government of the importance of a successful apprenticeship system is more than welcome. Earlier changes broke the golden rule: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
So now we are back to pairing apprentices to qualified artisans, combining work experience with hands-on training, a method used for centuries in Europe, and today particularly successful in Germany.
We replaced this venerable system with 50 further education and training (FET) colleges. This resulted in hundreds of young people armed with certificates attesting to a dubious competency.
A private sector domain
Not surprisingly, artisan training became – as in apartheid days – a private sector domain. Companies set up their own training systems. Those showing talent and endurance got a job offer. Like most things in the private sector, this worked. It also proved once again that governments don’t create jobs.
Meanwhile, according to the National Development Plan, we will need more than 30 000 additional artisans every year for the next 15 years. That is not much short of half a million.
The FET system is being expanded to take more students (up to 500 000, we are told) but whether this actually produces trained artisans or is merely a means of keeping young people occupied and off the streets, is moot. For example, FET trainers get less than a third of the pay the private sector offers – not enough to attract the best or incentivise the rest.
The private sector will again have to step in. It is already doing the bulk of artisan training, according to some sources, but there are, at least, government incentives to ease the burden. The new/old system will face a major perception problem: potential apprentices often reject the pay offered, failing to accept free on-the-job training as part of the deal.
The latest changes to our skills training system have been accompanied by much fanfare, speeches and celebrations. Last year was proclaimed “The Year of the Artisan”.
In February, the “The Decade of the Artisan” had its own official launch, and the whole effort was publicly described as a “Marshall Plan”, to provide the youth with jobs.
High-flown rhetoric apart, the size of the challenge is now clear to everyone.
As the Master Builders Association (MBA) of the Western Cape bleakly put it, “our limited building industry skills base… (may)… disappear”, if we do not get it right.
The association’s response to the crisis is to tour the schools with the message that university is not the only door to a career and that apprentices can “earn while they learn”.
This inventive attempt to change perceptions of artisanship tells school leavers “it is cool to be a plumber. It is cool to be a mechanic.”
How the government hopes things will turn out is embodied in words broadcast on the internet, and labelled optimistically as a case study.
Read it and try not to weep. The comments in brackets are added.
“Meet Anton… he wants to work in clothing (not naked?)… he recognises that his creativity and attention to detail are his main passions (sic) and strengths… After… some research online (he of course has access to a computer and the internet) he finds (out that) he can study… for a course at his local FET college, combine it with work experience, and… qualify as a tailor, so he can start to make snappy (sic) suits for a living.”
Trades in demand
“Anton finds (how fortunate) a tailor in his community (where else?)… willing to take him on and teach him the tricks of the trade (never trust a tailor?)
“They sign a formal contract and Anton will soon start training with his new mentor while also completing his theory component (studies of tailoring) at the college. In four years’ time, he will have completed his training and be in a position to start his own business, if he chooses to.”
Despite the happy-ever-after aspects of this story and its strange tone, one hopes there is an Anton who fits this profile, and that he will become a tailor.
There is not, one would have thought, a great demand for tailors, but possibly there is one. Good luck Anton, wherever you are.
The question is, why choose tailoring as a “case study” when the economy desperately needs (in no particular order) bricklayers, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, painters, computer technicians – to name but a few trades?
Besides, it will take better communication to reach school-leavers, and more than the internet to reach them.
Only a national and targeted campaign, conceived by a professional advertising agency with a track record in mass communication, has a chance.
Without it, our prospects for a growing economy to meet the need to provide jobs for the millions of unemployed will remain bleak.
**Keith Bryer is a retired communications consultant.
BUSINESS REPORT