This is a terrible chart. This issue of infographics oversimplifying news to the point of misinformation is something I raised directly with the Alastair (The Outlier founder) in an insightful training session. This chart and the framing of the linkedin post completely ignores the fact that the minimum academic requirement for TVET enrollment is completing grade 9.
That is also the same grade equivalent my father completed (although the details are fuzzy whether he actually completed the year) before taking up a job at Leyland and building a career in the automotive industry.
Despite the MANY issues in the education system, there is more than one path to success. And more than one metric to measure society by.
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I agree that this fixation on the rate of children finishing matric is a distraction - there should be a clearer and more explicit path to TVETs communicated to students. Would be interesting to see how other countries do this. I know Germany has different routes children can take from a young age to technical high schools, universities, etc.
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Even standard 9 and TVET are too late to deal with youth unemployment. We need to be more innovative, or look for different solutions. There are many many children who simply will not make it to those levels in an academic environment, so physical skills relevant to today’s society and market should be in the curriculum. Small business skills would be useful. Welding and plumbing skills would stand many in good stead to find work in industry. A sponsored programme to teach and qualify youngsters to drive and/or ride a scooter/bike properly, would be useful, especially if combined with a learnership programme for retailers or delivery services to employ them. That industry is now totally controlled (with the silent connivance of major retailers who boast super profits) by untrained or under-trained reckless foreign delivery riders. These stepping stones may enable even academically inclined youth to study further without needing to be on campus. We can’t keep on turning out graduates who are unemployable.
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Are you suggesting a regulated national apprenticeship programme that offers tax incentives for businesses to help skill our youth? The special economic zones, well, Coega, to my knowledge does run a scheme like that to try and deliver skilled artisans into the growing industrial area. There are green shoots for alternative streams to employment… But the ubrupt phasing out of NQF in favour of the new vocational national certificate (NCV) has also caused additional confusion. I know of at least one school of skills matriculant who was turned away by a TVET because of an incompatible qualification.
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This is part of a broader topic and one of my pet peeves, there is absolutely NO matching done between jobs that are required and the graduates being spewed out, there is, by way of example, a MASSIVE surplus of law graduates, sure some will be absorbed into business but there are way more graduates than openings and this means that a family might have made major sacrifices for the student to study and never ever get a return. On the other side of the spectrum there is probably a deficit of some of the skills that would emerge from a TVET college. A matching exercise ought to be done and acted upon
