Business Times reports that Shameela Soobramoney, CEO of the National Business Initiative (NBI), says SA needs to “reorientate” its education system to provide skills for a low carbon economy as a matter of urgency.
“There is an urgency around the fact that the transition to a low carbon economy has already begun and the skills set is needed already,” she warned, adding that “while on the one hand we're deeply concerned about potential job losses in for, example, the coal value chain there's a lot to be lost in the rest of the economy by not transitioning.” According to Soobramoney, currently “our education and training system is not equipped to supply the skills we're already needing for this renewables-based future. We need to start looking at how this system can be used to produce these skills.” Demand-led skilling was a must, she pointed out. “Producing skills in and of itself doesn't solve anything. Those skills need to be fit to be employed. That's where the private sector has a massive role to play … More focus on demand-led skilling could make our TVET (Technical Vocational Education and Training) college system so much more useful to the economy. We need to make our technical education and training system far more fit for purpose.” It would also help if TVET colleges were located more strategically to maximise opportunities for economic inclusion. But, having the government's just energy transition implementation plan in place at last, with which the NBI's skilling for employment programme was aligned, was a big positive, Soobramoney noted. “At least now we have a view on three industries: renewables, green hydrogen and new energy vehicles (Nevs).”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Chris Barron at Business Times (subscriber access only)
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