Democratising skills development in the AI age is more critical than ever
By Jon Foster-Pedley, Dean & Director - Henley Business School South Africa
SA’s economy is already battling the undertow of an underskilled working population; how will it be able to keep up with the coming wave of generative AI that will resculpt the workplace as we know it? By radically increasing the pace and relevance of management education and skills development.
If SA’s economy were a food processing plant, it would be a monstrously inefficient one. While the system is successfully extracting the juice of a few skilled resources, the vast majority of SA’s raw talent is pulped, underutilised, undervalued and ultimately discarded.
This is the harsh truth of South Africa’s skills development and public education processes, and the consequences of this wastefulness are stark, says Jon Foster-Pedley, dean and director of Henley Business School Africa.
“Right now, just 6% of people who start school have degrees within six years of leaving school in South Africa, compared to 50% in the UK and 55% in Finland. Our organisations and institutions are hollowed out due to a lack of skills and management ability. We risk economic stagnation as well as widening inequality and an inability to adapt to the demands of the future if we don’t do something about it and do it fast!”
Foster-Pedley says that this reality is the driving force behind Henley Business School’s rapidly expanding education offerings on both its Joburg and Cape Town campuses. The school has developed a unique, post-experience qualification stairway in Management Practice, comprising five flexible and stackable qualifications from post-matric to master’s level designed to fast-track the skills and confidence of working South Africans.
“We want to make the path to becoming a sought-after manager easier, faster and more immediately useful for individuals and organisations,” he says.
“Our economy is already battling the undertow of an underskilled working population. How will it be able to keep up with the coming wave of generative AI that will resculpt the workplace as we know it? Nothing short of a workplace skills revolution will be able to counter this if we want to drive greater economic activity and, more importantly, give people purpose, hope and meaning in their lives and work.”