Higher Education, Science And Innovation minister Blade Nzimande says the country needs to produce more graduate students if it is to meet its workforce needs.
Speaking at a fuel meeting on Thursday , Nzimande cited the country’s current graduate statistics and how few students ultimately make it through SouthAfrica’s school system.
Nzimande added that the government has made a significant effort to open the education system to more students, with the majority of current university students receiving some form of fiduciary support. These lost school days are known to have affected learning, but lack of data has thus far limited attempts at measuring learning losses. The only two studies measuring learning loss thus far were limited to fairly small samples of learners in relatively poor schools, to reading and only to the lower grades.
Conservatively estimated, learners have fallen 40% to 70% of a school year behind earlier cohorts in Language and much more, 95% to 106% of a school year in Mathematics.