Government has announced its plans to address the engineering skills shortage in South Africa aiming to have at least 24 000 competent artisans by 2020.

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa briefed Parliament on Thursday on the government’s plan to address the skills shortage among artisans, technicians, and engineers.

“A Joint Engineering Education Working Group between the Department of Higher Education and Training and the Engineering Council has been established to ensure that engineering skills needs are addressed,” Ramaphosa said during a question and answer session.

Ramaphosa said that the implementation of the National Infrastructure Plan provided an opportunity to develop those critical skills.

The government aimed to produce 24 000 competent artisans by 2020, as part of the effort to achieving the National Development Plan target of producing 30 000 artisans annually by 2030.

He said that the Human Resource Development Council was working with labour, government, and the private sector on a human resource strategy to ensure that there was not a mismatch of skills or skills shortages in certain sectors.

According to the deputy president the council enabled the private sector to work with government to produce well trained artisans.

Ramaphosa said this is playing itself out through the adoption of a number of Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges by the private sector.

“We are producing artisans; artisans that are going to have immediate positions in various companies that adopt these colleges,” he said.

–News24wire (Dane Mcdonald)