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Unemployment
and poverty is bad news. Many people are poor and jobless because
they do not have skills. That is why government is spending a lot of
money to develop the skills most needed by our fast-growing economy.
Biggest
challenge
Government started the Joint Initiative on
Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa) to develop the skills that are
most urgently needed.Jipsa is one of the most important parts of the
Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA).
Deputy President, Phumsile Mlambo-Ngcuka, is leading Jipsa. She
says the biggest challenge facing the economy is the shortage of
skills. |
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Students
At the launch
of Jipsa she saidthey will talk to unemployed students who have
studied at universities or colleges; retired experts; and people
from other countries who have useful skills for our economy. They
can pass their knowledge on to those who need it.
Other
countries
As part of Jipsa, trainees are sent to other
countries to get special skills.
One of Jipsa’s aims is also to
find ways of helping unemployed students who have finished their
studies, to find jobs.
Jipsa has a Technical Working Group led
by the secretary-general of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM),
Gwede Mantashe. |
Scarce skills
Jipsa will
look at developing scarce skills in the following areas:
- Engineering and planning skills for
jobs in transport, communications and energy;
- Engineering projects for cities and
towns needed by municipalities;
- Management and planning skills in
education, health and municipalities;
- Teacher training for mathematics,
science, information and communications technology and language
skills.
- Justice Mohale |