Question NW2832 to the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation
11 October 2022 - NW2832
Zondo, Mr S S to ask the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation
(1)Considering that the current unemployment rate is 34,5% and that most of the recently listed critical skills emanate from the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), how will his department encourage the uptake of occupations in the specified fields; (2) (a)(i) what initiatives are in place to raise awareness around the employment opportunities in the STEM field and (ii) how will the initiatives be mainstreamed to all structures of higher education and (b) how will the budget of his department be adjusted to offer funding opportunities for studies geared at the STEM occupations?
Reply:
1. The month of August is dubbed TVET Month on the calendar of my department. During this month, all the 50 public TVET colleges embark on various activities, including but not limited to, having direct engagements with the youth and especially employers/industry with the aim of profiling TVET colleges and their programme offerings. The programme exposes and encourages young people to consider careers with artisanal, vocational and technical skills. The main target audience for the TVET College Month are Grade 9 to12 learners, out of school and unemployed youth, College students and industry. Furthermore, my department has open week awareness campaign and artisan week campaign both to encourage learners and particularly female learners and students to enrol for STEM careers.
2. (a)(i) Since 2018, my department has embarked on a plan to review and update programmes and qualifications offered at TVET Colleges in order to align them with the needs of the rapidly changing economy and society. In this regard, at least 60 subjects of the Report 191 programme since 2018 has been revised and updated. Furthermore, my Department offer bursaries such as NSFAS, NSF, SETAs, NRF and international scholarship to encourage learners and students to follow STEM. (ii) In 2013, my Department launched the Decade of Artisan campaign to promote artisanship as a career of choice for South Africa’s youth. The campaign was launched under the theme “It’s cool to be a 21st Century Artisan”. The importance of this programme is to ensure that we develop the required artisans to successfully implement our country’s strategic infrastructure projects, which included the building of roads, schools, universities, harbours, power stations and economic infrastructure. Public colleges and universities are working hard to establish partnerships with key role-players such as the industry and the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) for workplace opportunities.
(b) Mr Zondo, there are already STEM subjects offered in TVET colleges (i.e.science, technology, engineering and mathematics) across a number of programmes.
We already fund the Pre-Vocational Learning Programmes (PLP) which is to strengthen students who wish to pursue the STEM stream. A further significant step towards funding STEM initiatives is to provide laptops to lecturers and students. This is something that we must seriously pursue for IT and engineering students.