The strategy, tabled in Parliament this week, is intended to improve the country's Human Development Index. The South African population will be severely affected by Aids, impacting significantly on all strata of the economically active labour force as well as among the unemployed, and the epidemic will probably exacerbate the existing skills shortage in the economy. Income inequality, a social reality in South Africa, is viewed as placing severe limitations on human resource development. By 1996 the gulf between rich and the poor had grown even larger.
Illiteracy also features strongly in the document as a factor inhibiting economic development.
Illiteracy figures stand at three million, and millions more are regarded as semi-literate. As a result many people cannot participate fully in the political, economic and social spheres of life. The document slams South African employers for a poor training record. The new strategy also places emphasis on early childhood education, childhood development, adult education and training, and securing a supply of scarce skills within the further and higher education bands of the national qualification framework. In the same vein, small business development, research and innovation sectors to support industrial and employment growth policies are prioritised.