LETTER: Job creation should precede upskilling
A high-skilled economy gives no immediate hope to the millions of job seekers with the incorrect or minimal abilities
Two articles in the opinion section of Business Day on Thursday made for interesting reading (“Confronting trickle-down presumptions” and “Lack of post-industrial skills holding back a new generation of workers”, January 12). These are two very different perspectives, and I venture the former is the more realistic and thought-provoking one.
A high-skilled economy gives no immediate hope to the millions of job seekers with the incorrect or minimal skills. We need to follow the Chinese example by first designing job-creating economies. Then, over time, we can tackle the upskilling of workers. Meanwhile, we must address the far more difficult and long-term issue of improving the education system to prepare young people to meet the needs of a modern economy.
We are at least one or even two generations away from achieving that objective. An economy based on lower-skilled workers producing or assembling goods for export would give an immediate or near-term boost to the economy. It would be a good idea to invite the authors of both articles to debate this issue in an open forum.
David Sykes
Via email
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.