|
A country’s economic competitiveness is strongly related to its science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills and resources. In South
Africa, our future lies in successfully addressing a shortage of these core skills.
Universal access to schooling has been greatly improved in South Africa, with 97% of children starting school. Also, it is estimated that South African
businesses spend R1 billion to R2 billion every year on education initiatives. This is in addition to the state spending on education of roughly 5% of GDP,
making South Africa one of the highest spenders in this area globally.
However, despite greater access and spending, the facts are that:
 |
Fewer than 10% of the children who start school will obtain a matric
pass good enough for them to attend university. Of those, significantly
less than 20% will qualify to go on to study for a STEM degree, with
many that qualify not able to go to university. Of those that go, less
than half will graduate. This means that if 1 000 children start school
in South Africa today, maybe six will go on to study for a STEM degree
and three may complete it. |
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
South African school children perform significantly worse than other
countries on international maths and science assessments. |
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
South Africa has a huge skills shortage and also a high rate of
unemployment. |
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
Despite funding and interventions in place, this picture remains the
same year after year. |
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
South Africa is facing real challenges in both the quantity and quality of
the skilled resources that it produces.
“In a complex school system, finding
cause and effect is not a simple task. Though it would be easier to make
decisions based on assumptions or informal evidence, investments in research are
what lead to the right strategies – the ones that, in the end, will have the
most impact on schools, classrooms, and students.”
– The Boston Plan for Excellence www.bpe.org
|
