By Dr Frances Wright, lecturer for the Institute of Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Global economic pressure and rapid advances in technology and the knowledge-based economy have seen much of the world plunged into a skills shortage crisis. In South Africa, the problem is compounded by a history of poor quality education and limited opportunities. Solutions to the problem need to not only be effective on a broad scale, but also meet the speed at which change is happening.

With a 27 percent shortage in filling critical positions, old strategies are no longer able to meet the critical need to produce more skills; neither are they producing the higher level and kinds of skills needed to respond to the demands of a global knowledge-based economy. In response, the government has placed vocational and occupational certification and capability building via learnership and apprenticeship programmes at the core of its skills development policies.

In 2012, the Human Sciences Research Council researched the impact that these policies were making in addressing the crisis. Although the Developing Skills and Capabilities through the Learnership and Apprenticeship Pathway Systems Synthesis Report highlighted the value these programmes offered, despite negative perceptions, it also raised alarm bells about the mismatch between the skills and capabilities developed during training and those required in the workplace.

At the beginning of 2015, Minister of Higher Education and Training Dr Blade Nzimande highlighted the success of learnership programmes, primarily due to the partnerships between employers, SETAs and training providers. He felt that although these programmes are often complicated to administer and expensive to run, they remained a highly effective mechanism for skills development, with 86% of those who have completed a learnership subsequently employed. In the current financial year, the department has actively increased targets on learnerships, with the SETAs targeting more than 43,000 spaces for unemployed individuals entering learnerships.

The Institute of Logistics and Supply Chain Management (ILSCM), a division of the Open Learning Group (Pty) Ltd has been actively involved in establishing learnerships for candidates in NQF Level 4. The ILSCM found that skills transfer is more successful when learnership programmes are applied in combination with coaching or mentorship and when buy-in is achieved from all levels of management. Success comes down to the ability of the company’s programme administrator and the willingness of the mentors. The first skills that need to be developed are industry administrative skills. Many mentors resent the added pressure but have to be convinced of the benefits of mentoring to the individual and to the industry.

In part, these issues are the legacy of the industry’s history. The professionalisation of the industry is relatively new. In the past, most managers moved up the ranks via experience rather than formal qualification. Higher degrees in the subject are rare and the demand for formal qualifications has only recently become necessary to meet the challenges of globalisation.

There is also a strange anomaly in the industry; larger companies are more committed to developing their learnership programmes, but generally don’t claim the skills development levy, while smaller companies show no real commitment to the programmes, despite the positive outcomes and increase in productivity for the company.

Effective mentorship is not something that can be enforced or legislated and only once these programmes are effectively managed and mentor-drive, will the true potential be achieved. Generally speaking, this is only likely to happen with the overall professionalisation of the industry through management qualifications and programmes.

It is fortunate that there are programmes such as those offered by the ILSCM. In a situation like this, learners can be led to achieve fully accredited degrees, diplomas or certificates. It is a privilege to be involved in such a scenario. It is fulfilling to know that even distance-learning learners can be supported to achieve qualifications and that a learner’s career possibilities will expand dramatically, even when work pressures might slow down the process.