'White professionals' numbers plummet'

jak3 said:
I always wonder, if our gdp is x today, what would it be if the million or so people who left hadn't?

How much money are 1 million skilled people directly or indirectly worth?

If i was running this country, i would do anything humanly possible to get them back. We have an extremely large skilled workforce making other countries richer as we speak. If only the ANC weren't idiots.
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Do some guesswork maths... a million people paying R10 000 a month in tax (a guessed average)
R120,000,000,000 (R120 billion in US numerics, R120 milliard in UK numerics) per year that SARS didnt collect, and then its the indirect employment of Domestics and gardeners.
 
S1ght said:
I'm too lazy to read the whole thread so I just read the 1st post and heres my 2c I'd like to add, the initial post only gave percentages not numbers (I haven't checked the link but its 1am and I've been studying since this morning) but anyway without numbers to say something rose by 500% is meaningless in a way.

Example:
1994: 1 black person is registered as a doctor
2010: 10 black people are registered as doctors

Thats an increase of 900%...Anyway just a thought I had while reading your post, the thread may now continue :p
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haha....ditto....

I was thinking the same thing....

Stellenbosch University had something similar a few years back in their STATISTICS.....they were saying that the enrolment of BLACK African students went up by 600% in five years or so...I went and looked at the numbers and there were like 15 black Africans enroled in 1995 (pregrad) I think and in 1999 there were like 90 or 96 or so....Considering the Stellenbosch has a student population of 25 000 or so....

I fell off my chair laughing....

This article is similar...
 
Ricard said:
Do some guesswork maths... a million people paying R10 000 a month in tax (a guessed average)
R120,000,000,000 (R120 billion in US numerics, R120 milliard in UK numerics) per year that SARS didnt collect, and then its the indirect employment of Domestics and gardeners.
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..and thats just a tax paying guestimation. The amount of industrious entrepreneurs amongst that lot must be staggering.

You take one born and bred farmer, throw in some equipment and some land, and magically 100's of tons of produce appear and 100's are employed. It's just so simple. Skills and leadership are more precious than gold. Its quite saddening that the half-whits running this country just dont get it.
 
hungrybeaver said:
Yeah I've heard this aswell. I have a few mates that are civil engineers in their early 20s and they have said that a lot of students (about 70%) drop out in the first 2 years. I've also been told that when they go to conferences, the government people in charge who make decisions in this industry are so under qualified that the questions they ask at these conferences are laughable.
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Not just civil, I can vouch that it's the same in electronic. In this government (and corrupt governments in general) it's not the person most fit for the (governmental) position who gets it, it's the one who was a 'struggle buddy' or 'family' etc. They then hire advisers who actually know something and the point is that the government official just sits there and sucks money like a middle man. People are still leaving like there's no tomorrow. It has slowed down a bit though, but still. And this dumba$$ governments solution? "Let's just give everyone a degree and BAM! more engineers!" damn they're smart.
 
dlk001 said:
The point is not about Blacks engineers or AA. There has been sharp decline in graduate engineers (all races) who go on to qualify as professionals. The reasons are:

- engineers changing careers to more lucrative fields e.g. finance
- engineers opting for management line of work versus technical line
- lack of professional mentors to develop graduate engineers to professional levels
- lack of diverse engineering training that is needed to develop a graduate to professional level
- graduate engineers leaving the country
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Also
You dont always need to be registered - I work with many engineers who just dont bother registering since there's no legal requirement in their field to be registered
 
UnUnOctium said:
And this dumba$$ governments solution? "Let's just give everyone a degree and BAM! more engineers!" damn they're smart.
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Clearly, you don't have a degree. We all have to jump the same hurdle....sorry....

If you do have a degree, I'm shocked that you were able to achieve such...
 
Garyvdh said:
The government needs to grab a whole bunch of matriculants who have reasonably good grades and pay for their education to doctors, engineers, scientists, etc. About 15,000 of each will do... any colour welcome.

That should help fix this country and economy up.
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As long as the demographics are adhered to?
 
dlk001 said:
That is not true. There is no give away of engineering degrees and ECSA does not give away professional engineering status.
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degree != PrEng, as I'm sure you know.

the graduate said:
Clearly, you don't have a degree. We all have to jump the same hurdle....sorry....

If you do have a degree, I'm shocked that you were able to achieve such...
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Hmm, clearly I didn't elaborate my point across well.

Government is putting huge pressure on universities to put out more engineers. Universities say: "We have standards", and give them a nice .!. My point was, government is pointing fingers at the wrong place since universities aren't purposefully holding undergrads back, it's the fact that dumber and dumber matriculants are produced by the secondary schooling system every year.
 
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Mila said:
but it is a good indicator.
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Not so sure about that either. My Wife is working as a Physics lecturer at a University, and she is shocked at what people actually know, compared to what they should know. She pretty much spends the first 6 weeks each year re-doing EVERYTHING, that people were meant to know based on their pass mark in matric to even apply for the degree in the first place.

Hence, why I believe there has been talk of introducing entrance exams to all students at the facility as the matric results are obviously worth nothing!
 
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UnUnOctium said:
Government is putting huge pressure on universities to put out more engineers. Universities say: "We have standards", and give them a nice .!. My point was, government is pointing fingers at the wrong place since universities aren't purposefully holding undergrads back, it's the fact that dumber and dumber matriculants are produced by the secondary schooling system every year.
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That's nothing new and in many countries around the world who face skills shortage, the first finger is pointed at universities. ECSA themselves are putting pressure on the engineering industry to put out more candidate engineers for professional registration. Has ECSA forced the industry to lower standards? Has Government forced the universities to lower standards?

I'm sure you already know but this is just information for other forumites. ECSA is the Engineering Council of South Africa who regulate the engineering profession. As one of the signatories of the Washington Accord, ECSA are also responsible for accreditation of our engineering education to make sure it meets international standards.
 
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UnUnOctium said:
it's the fact that dumber and dumber matriculants are produced by the secondary schooling system every year.
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Ain't that the truth. I've been lecturing at a University for a while now and the quality of students is pathetic. It's hard to explain, but it's not that they arn't being exposed to school-level material, it's that the schools arn't teaching people how to think. Trying to get intellectual effort out of students is like trying to draw intelligence from Malema.
 
dlk001 said:
Please elaborate the point you trying to make? Did someone say engineering degree = PrEng?
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In your retort you said ECSA does not give away professional status, I never mentioned them before and never disputed it.

dlk001 said:
That's nothing new and in many countries around the world who face skills shortage, the first finger is pointed at universities. ECSA themselves are putting pressure on the engineering industry to put out more candidate engineers for professional registration. Has ECSA forced the industry to lower standards? Has Government forced the universities to lower standards?

I'm sure you already know but this is just information for other forumites. ECSA is the Engineering Council of South Africa who regulate the engineering profession. As one of the signatories of the Washington Accord, ECSA are also responsible for accreditation of our engineering education to make sure it meets international standards.
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Yes, but from what's happening (at both my previous and my current institution), is that government only cares about numbers, the way they see it is that the universities are holding undergrads back on purpose or that the universities have flawed systems. While the problem is before the universities, secondary. This is especially made worse with their ever so flexible matric pass mark, government says "LOOK! we have such a high pass rate, while the universities have such a low one, clearly the problem is with them.".
 
UnUnOctium said:
Yes, but from what's happening (at both my previous and my current institution), is that government only cares about numbers, the way they see it is that the universities are holding undergrads back on purpose or that the universities have flawed systems. While the problem is before the universities, secondary. This is especially made worse with their ever so flexible matric pass mark, government says "LOOK! we have such a high pass rate, while the universities have such a low one, clearly the problem is with them.".
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Yeah politicians only care about numbers and this thread in itself is about politics and numbers. While government wants more graduates, they also want zero fatalities in mining industry. They always pushing for numbers that are inconceivable.

However, that does not mean universities are now lowering engineering education standards. It means that universities must look carefully at education of engineers. The skills shortage is also affecting university departments which in turn will affect their success rate. Many universities have been changing engineering education to make it more adoptable to todays students. This does not mean lowering standards, it means changing the education approach.
 
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dlk001 said:
Yeah politicians only care about numbers and this thread in itself is about politics and numbers. While government wants more graduates, they also want zero fatalities in mining industry. They always pushing for numbers that are inconceivable.

However, that does not mean universities are now lowering engineering education standards. It means that universities must look carefully at education of engineers. The skills shortage is also affecting university departments which in turn will affect their success rate. Many universities have been changing engineering education to make it more adoptable to todays students. This does not mean lowering standards, it means changing the education approach.
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Indeed, and lowering standards they are not. Which now brings us back to the start of the 'cyclic conversation' in that what I said was, government wants numbers, universities do not want to lower standards. And that's where my original post's sarcasm stems from. i.e. "give everyone degree, it's easy, if they have a degree, they are engineers who can do the work". Now obviously I'd hate it if universities were to lower standards (though it wouldn't directly affect me since I'm doing postgrad) but it sure as hell would peeve me off if I then had to explain what multiplication is instead of just differentiation.
 
A lot of hot air here ...

If the proportion of white professionals is going down then this in itself is not a bad thing. You need to look why it's happening. If if it's happening because of discrimination against white professionals, then that is a bad thing because professionals who could be making a valuable contribution are being excluded, and are more likely to be lost forever to the country as it's much easier for them to emigrate to find work.

Side note: some people call them cowards and other names for leaving. I guess having you and your family starve is the courageous choice in the minds of some:)
 
Greylor said:
Ain't that the truth. I've been lecturing at a University for a while now and the quality of students is pathetic. It's hard to explain, but it's not that they arn't being exposed to school-level material, it's that the schools arn't teaching people how to think. Trying to get intellectual effort out of students is like trying to draw intelligence from Malema.
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Or the teachers suck, or they can only empathise with their own race(that's a nice way of calling some of them racist) :)
 
hungrybeaver said:
Yeah I've heard this aswell. I have a few mates that are civil engineers in their early 20s and they have said that a lot of students (about 70%) drop out in the first 2 years. I've also been told that when they go to conferences, the government people in charge who make decisions in this industry are so under qualified that the questions they ask at these conferences are laughable.
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Yep, when I started my Elec eng course we were 68 in the class. 6 months later we were down to 21. Eventually only 2 of us finished the course without failing a year.

UnUnOctium said:
Not just civil, I can vouch that it's the same in electronic. In this government (and corrupt governments in general) it's not the person most fit for the (governmental) position who gets it, it's the one who was a 'struggle buddy' or 'family' etc. They then hire advisers who actually know something and the point is that the government official just sits there and sucks money like a middle man. People are still leaving like there's no tomorrow. It has slowed down a bit though, but still. And this dumba$$ governments solution? "Let's just give everyone a degree and BAM! more engineers!" damn they're smart.
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My boss and I were discussing this very thing yesterday. How gov 'project managers' have absolutely no feel for the work they're supposedly managing. I've been to tons of conferences and it's an absolute laugh when you hear what these highly paid incompetent cowboys are up to.

thatdamnJoe said:
Also
You dont always need to be registered - I work with many engineers who just dont bother registering since there's no legal requirement in their field to be registered
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They're trying to change that now apparently. I actually need to compile my forms so I can get my PrEng accreditation sometime next year.
 
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