South Africa must ¡°stop skilling for the sake of skilling¡±, the country¡¯s deputy higher education minister has said as youth unemployment continues to soar.?

When they were?voted into power?almost a year ago, South Africa¡¯s coalition government leaders set out their key priorities, including economic growth and job creation.?

So far, they have struggled: in the first quarter of 2025, youth unemployment hit 62 per cent, up from 59 per cent the previous year. Growth continues to stagnate while the country¡¯s debt skyrockets.?

For Mimmy Martha Gondwe, appointed deputy minister of higher education in July 2024 after the formation of the coalition, the solution to these problems is, in part, better aligning skills training with the demands of the private sector.

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¡°One thing I¡¯m really passionate about seeing is our young people emerging from our sector and being able to be absorbed by the economy, either as employees or employers who can employ themselves and other people,¡± she told?51³Ô¹Ï at the recent World Education Forum meeting of education ministers.?

¡°It¡¯s not enough for me any more for us to just skill young people for the sake of skilling them. We¡¯ve got to skill them in skills that are demanded and needed by the economy.¡±

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This means a greater focus on TVET colleges, which provide vocational and technical education, as well as the country¡¯s nine community colleges.?

¡°At the beginning of the year we had a challenge around admissions,¡± Gondwe said, because 100,000 more students passed the common entrance exam than the country¡¯s public universities had space for.?

¡°Because everybody wanted to get into university, people had forgotten about your TVET colleges,¡± Gondwe said. ¡°Obviously the answer is also to build more universities but I think we have to try and make sure that the load is spread in terms of enrolments right across the board.

¡°But that¡¯s not going to happen until we can ensure that our community colleges are better resourced and the perception around TVET colleges being somewhat inferior to universities is corrected.¡±

Currently, funding is ¡°skewed towards universities¡±, she continued, with community colleges getting the least money out of the different types of institutions. These are ¡°the stepchild of our sector,¡± Gondwe said.?

¡°It worries me that 90 per cent of their budget is spent on salaries and they have 10 per cent within which to work for infrastructure, learning materials, etc.¡±

But it¡¯s a catch-22; getting more young people into work via skills training and higher education could help the fiscal situation but the government has little money to invest in doing so. Gondwe¡¯s solution is a practical one.?

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¡°We will never get the budget or the kind of money that we always want because of¡­our economic outlook as a country,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯ve been very intentional and deliberate about leveraging off partnerships with the private sector.

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¡°I literally told them, ¡®look, you really need to come on board in terms of ensuring that our young people can find employment once they emerge. What do you need us to do?¡¯¡±

These companies told the deputy minister that the curriculum is failing to meet industry needs. ¡°We still haven't gotten that right,¡± she said. ¡°I needed to resuscitate that relationship between us and the private sector.¡±

Another key barrier is the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), which does not provide funding to community college students. The scheme itself has been beset with problems in recent years, including?delays releasing money?to university and TVET students.?

¡°I take comfort in the fact that the minister has now appointed a new board at NSFAS and they've been given the orders to ensure that it turns around its fortunes,¡± she said.?

For students who can¡¯t access NSFAS funding, food insecurity is a ¡°huge¡± problem, often leading them to drop out of education.

Instead of offering maintenance loans, Gondwe is working on what she describes as a ¡°sustainable solution¡±.

¡°We get them to have their own food gardens where they can grow their own food,¡± she said.?

¡°We have to wean our people off being too dependent on government and also get them into having the spirit of entrepreneurship.?

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¡°We really need to get our people thinking about, ¡®How do I not only create employment for myself but other people as well?¡¯¡±

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com