Eastern Cape operating at a loss - producing skilled labour for other provinces

#Hire a Graduate

Literature reveals that, 57.9% of the labour force has completed their education at a tertiary level. This implies that the size of the graduate labour force is gradually increasing. However, unemployment amongst South African graduates is still very high and is increasing. 

Economic well-being is created in a production process. Over the years the Eastern Cape government has invested and unremittingly and invested in education with the aim of producing skilled labour force as a result many South Africans, have become better educated over the last decade. This trend can be observed in the increasing enrolment rate at tertiary educational institutions across the country, this therefore, means that South Africa is experiencing growth in its graduate labour force. 

The Eastern Cape budget speech of 2017 a R32.98 million budget was allocated to education and R248-million to revitalise agricultural colleges such as Fort Cox in Middledrift, however there is no strategic plan or framework that speaks directly on the issue of the production output which are graduates in this case who have undoubtedly acquired knowledge and skills that should be contributing to the growth and development of the province. But the sad reality is that most graduates remain unemployed.

The government continues to ignore this fact and further set aside R92.6 Million to create hundreds more jobs for road rangers and support car wash projects. R 143.7 million earmarked to upskills of unemployed youths and nothing said about employment of skilled labour. It is a sad reality to see graduates with skills migrating to other provinces due to lack opportunities in the Eastern Cape Province. Remember, development is directly proportional to economic growth, when graduates decide to leave the province due to high rate of unemployment, the province remains underdeveloped, thus, economic instability. This is manifested in the Eastern Cape 2017 budget which decreased because of the number of people who have migrated the province.

On agriculture, literature on the performance of smallholder farmers in particular land reform beneficiaries points out that market access is not only their challenge for their poor performance. Access to key, efficient and relevant information, lack of extension services, poor management skills, and poor cash flow records were amongst the challenges facing the smallholder farmers. Ignoring all these facts the government of the Eastern Cape allocates R506 million on food security where part of the funds will be injected to commercialise small-scale farmers in particular in rural areas and speaks nothing on increasing skilled labour in particular agricultural graduates who should be in place to equip the small-scale farmers with the necessary skills on their field of interest which in turn will ensure quality and improved production that will ensure rural economic growth through market access and eventually the desired outcomes of commercialising this agricultural sector.

In essence the Eastern cape does government does have an idea that there is a necessity for education to increase skilled labour for development and economic growth, it is the how part that is in question. While in the interim graduate unemployment increases resulting to waste scarce human capital resources. The government further understand that the issue of food security is a serious matter, but the how part of addressing it is a problem in question while state resourced are pumped on agricultural inputs while small-scale farmers continue to have challenges as mentioned above and the agriculture graduates with their skills migrate to other provinces in search of employment. The Eastern Cape is producing skilled labour for other provinces.