At the same time employee mobility has dramatically increased globally and the quest to retain skilled staff is a difficult task in today s world. On the one hand we are exporting skilled professionals to some countries and importing equivalent numbers from other countries. One of my responsibilities in all of this is to provide the policy framework to transform the old systems of education, to overcome the apartheid legacy and to create a system that prepares young South Africans to participate fully in our fledgling democracy and in the global economy. Investment in South Africa by American business over the past several years since the end of apartheid has been significant and we want to keep it that way. But every time you make the decision to invest into South Africa perhaps, you can also consider the issue of education a little more closely.
Education is fundamental to the transformation of society.
Linked to this is the ability or willingness of the state to deliver an appropriate education system. We inherited an education sector, which was structured along racial rather than rational lines. Our first task was to realign 17 racially based departments with their own salary structures and terms of condition. His resulted in significant re-deployment of teachers. So, this leaves very little for other equally important items such as maintaining or building new schools, providing education materials to children, and introducing new cultures of technology and innovation into the classrooms.