South Africa’s skills policies are not in line with its environmental commitments and the country needs to significantly improve its technical and vocational education and training (TVET) ecosystem to produce the skills needed to develop and capitalize on the just transition .
“Environmental challenges are cross-cutting issues. They do not belong to one sector, and the transition involves multiple systems, but our skills system does not have the capacity to deal with cross-cutting skills requirements,” University of Witswatersrand Future of Work. Director of the program’s research center Presha Ramsarup he said this week.
Part of the aim of the Future of Work Program is to develop a mechanism to coordinate the development of green and just transition skills.
“We are working to determine how jobs will change. Employers do not understand what will change a job. South Africa needs to develop tools at employer, sector and system level for sectoral education and training authorities to identify changes in the skills requirements and adapt the training courses according to the needs of the industry,” he said.
For example, the center investigates whether domain knowledge within occupations is changing, whether the occupation’s materials, tools, products and services are changing and, from this, whether researchers can define which will be the occupational changes, Ramsarup pointed out.
“This will help us identify areas of interest where jobs are starting to change. From this, occupational analysis and research will help inform the skills planning methods and models needed for a just transition “.
Meanwhile, energy industry body the South African National Energy Association (SANEA) conducted a desk study of more than 200 reports relating to South Africa’s skills and education systems.
“South Africa lacks an integrated view of what is needed to support a just climate transition, although many skills are common to many of the technologies, such as renewable energy generation and green hydrogen, to example,” said the Secretary General of SANEA. Wendy Poulton.
Skills interventions are also not market-driven, nor are they based on value chains, he added.
“South Africa’s economy is also coal-based and the impact of the energy transition will be much greater than in less carbon-intensive economies. From our research, we are seeing that the skills gap energy is expanding amid deteriorating energy security. These are significant issues for South Africa in terms of climate change adaptation and decarbonisation,” he said.
Poulton highlighted that there are some no-regret options open to the country that are common to all of the modeled scenarios, such as increased renewable energy generation and energy efficiency measures, as well as a push towards prosumerism.
However, questions remain about the timing of changes to the energy market, including when and how green hydrogen will be introduced amid declining use of coal and oil.
“A lot of skills are required no matter what scenario or path you take,” he noted.
Sectoral master plans can help actors understand what future demand will be, said the Department of Science and Innovation’s (DSI) chief director of hydrogen and energy, Dr. Rebecca Maserumule.
Understanding the demand for skills is necessary to ensure that the education and training system responds to the needs of the labor market and reduces mismatches, agreed the director of the Department for Education’s labor market intelligence and monitoring system Higher and Training (DHET). Mamphoku Khuluvhe.
“We must ensure that skills are not a constraint on the growth of the economy and specific economic sectors, or on our efforts to address climate change,” he said.
Cooperation with industries to identify sectors that will be affected by the energy and climate transition of the economy is critical and value chains must be included to ensure that all stakeholders are part of the transition, he said Khuluvhe.
“We have to think about what processes should be established to allow people to find work in the short, medium and long term, as the economy and economic sectors transition,” he stressed.
It is essential that the TVET system is an active part of the transition in order to match changes in industry with changes in education and training, Maserumule noted.
A green hydrogen development paper, developed in cooperation with DHET and SANEA, showed that if South Africa switched to using its sun and wind to produce green hydrogen and use it in many sectors, it could create up to 3.2 million jobs. in the economy, with the largest number of jobs created in the green steel industry, followed by the platinum group metals sector and then the power generation sector.
“TVET colleges can be a critical enabler of the hydrogen economy. For example, the green hydrogen economy can revive the steel sector, but we need to develop a clear master plan and ‘understand how to transition education and training to develop new skills or reskill employees,’ illustrated Maserumule, based on projections from the Hydrogen Society.
“We need to ensure adequate and sustained funding for TVET schools, so students can become the green craftsmen and technicians we need.
“This will require empowering colleges, improving governance within them and the TVET system and ensuring accountability between national departments responsible for progress, including the DHET and the DSI,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, funding skills development to support a just climate transition is a global challenge, said the United Nations Education Organization’s Director of Lifelong Learning Policy and Systems, the Science and Culture (Unesco). Borhene Chakroun.
“Green funds and economic stimulus packages for green transitions, such as the one being rolled out in South Africa, typically include allocations for education and training that are less than 3% of the total funding available. Therefore it’s important to talk about how the green transition resources are allocated,” he said.
Attention is being paid to financing the green economy, but less to education and training, which has implications for greening initiatives.
Furthermore, and importantly, Unesco research has indicated that the first 1,000 days of a child’s life are critical and that investments must include basic education and early childhood development, he stressed Chakroun.
Universities also have an important role to play in the green transition, in terms of research, experimentation and innovation, as well as to irrigate and feed the wider education system with skills and educators, he added.
However, there is little articulation about which food jobs will enable the transition to new jobs in a green economy, Ramsarup noted.
South Africa’s national plans and sectoral master plans need to think about occupational pathways for students entering industry and for those currently employed, thereby preventing graduates from lacking the skills needed for jobs futures and that employees cannot move to new jobs, he advised.
*Speakers quoted in this article participated in the ‘Skills for a Just Transition Indaba’ organized by the Presidential Climate Commission, the DHET and the Energy and Water Sector Education Training Authority on 7 December .
