Wits Education Policy Unit

Researching Education and the Labour Market

The Wits Education Policy Unit (EPU) was founded in 1987 as a joint venture of the University of the Witwatersrand and the National Education Co-ordinating Committee (NECC) for the specific purpose of providing a scholarly context for the development of post-apartheid education policy. With the transition to democratic government in 1994, the EPU's objectives were extended to include:

• providing policy support, research and analysis to the democratic movement and to national and provincial governments;
• functioning as a rapid response mechanism for decision-makers and policy-makers in education;
• producing high quality impact research;
• ensuring training for black and female researchers; and
• fulfilling a resource and dissemination function.

The current focus of the EPU is on Researching Education and the Labour Market. We undertake policy-relevant, applied social-scientific research and associated capacity-building, focused on the intersection of education, training, work, and development.

The relationship between education and the economy is of ongoing concern around the world. In South Africa, both our education system and our economy have particular problems, largely originating in the apartheid system. Millions of people leave the school system with inadequate education, and we have very little provision of education and training outside of the school and university systems. 

Post-school education is increasingly criticized for failing to produce required skills. Many analysts talk about ‘skills gaps’ as a major problem for economic development, while others argue that education follows, and does not create, economic development. Better understandings are required of relationships between education systems and economies; the need for qualified people in South Africa and the ability of our education system to meet the needs; the need for more and better institutions and learning programmes; and the current barriers which prevent people from accessing education and the labour market.

Underpinning all of this is the need for better ways of conceptualizing vocational, occupational, and professional curricula. We need better understandings of what knowledge is needed in workplaces, what types of curricula are likely to provide students with access to this knowledge, and how training in workplaces can best be developed, encouraged, and supported.