Please find an attached soundbite by Angel Khanyile MP
Following an extensive review of South Africa’s scarce skills list, the Democratic Alliance (DA) is of the view that the absence of critical occupations from the list will have substantial implications on the country’s ability to meet its economic growth and development targets.
For this reason, the DA will submit an advisory note to the Minister of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi, warning the Department of the deficiencies of the current skills list and how it can be improved to match South Africa’s current development needs. The advisory note will focus on the omission of critical professions which include Maths and Science teachers, doctors and nurses.
Health professions
A glaring omission from the scarce skill list gazetted by the Minister on 2 February 2022, was the exclusion of doctors and nurses. Not only does South Africa have a skills shortage in the health professions, but the country also is not training enough doctors and nurses to shorten the health inequality gap.
According to statistics from the South African Nursing Council (SANC), the demographic composition of registered nurses and midwives is currently concentrated in old practitioners with less than a third under the age of 40. When these old practitioners retire, 15 years from now, South Africa could find itself sitting in a nursing skills crisis.
Failure to open up the health sector to foreign skilled nurses, as a way of plugging the impending skills gap, will result in a tremendous regression of South Africa’s already dismal health outcomes.
Relatedly, despite training hundreds of foreign doctors in our universities every year, we let go of this resource when the country has a clear need for their skills, especially in rural areas. The scarce skills list should provide a pathway for these doctors to assist communities in rural health centres.
Maths and Science teachers
While the critical skills list does provide a pathway for foreign teachers within the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) field, the explanatory schedules for the list are silent on foreign STEM teachers who were already teaching in schools.
The media is replete with stories of foreign teachers whose contracts were terminated without notice by Provincial Education Departments in the Northern Cape, North West and Limpopo. These provinces always achieve average Matric outcomes every year, and as such, they cannot afford to lose skilled STEM teachers.
The critical skills list explanatory schedule should provide explicit guidance on the retention of skilled STEM teachers in our public schools. It is public knowledge that South Africa is not training enough STEM teachers and limiting the participation of foreign educators will continue to affect the country’s performance on international STEM assessment reviews.
The advisory note to Motsoaledi is one of many engagements that the DA will be having with the Department as we work to conscientise South Africans on the party’s immigration policy that was launched on 9 March 2022. Our policy approach to immigration is premised on promoting efficiency and transparency in our immigration system, including the legal movement of foreign nationals in South Africa.