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Given the high rate of students who never make it past first year at university and the fact that the state has limited resources, it has become vital for the private sector to step up and do its bit to help mitigate the problem.
We know from official statistics that the dropout rate varies from 15% to 25% with even more students dropping out after completing first year but before they graduate.
We saw this need some five years ago and started an in-house mentorship programme aimed specifically at transferring the scarce skills of informational technology and business consulting to graduate and post graduate students who showed promise. It has proven to be highly successful.
Rather than just placing bums on lecture hall seats through a bursary, we employ these students and pay them a starting salary of between R15 000 and R20 000 a month while mentoring them in the wide range of IT and business skills we offer our clients.
The results so far have been outstanding, proving that the raw talent is there. With upwards of 150 highly skilled programmers and business consultants under one roof, our interns can pick and choose who they want to mentor them.
While bursaries are obviously hugely important for university fees, accommodation and for the purchase of books, we found that the real key to success was the early integration of students into our workforce so that we could mentor them in every aspect of the broad range of services we deliver in information technology and business consulting.
A problem that has not been fully addressed by the educational system in South Africa is the abysmal state of affairs relating to mathematics and science.
However much the state may want to fund higher education, there simply is not enough money to go around. I believe it would be very much in the interest of corporates to become more closely involved if for no other reason but to produce the kind of graduates that will help them grow their businesses.
It is for that reason that we decided to also become involved at secondary school level to make maths and science more accessible. We are in the process of negotiating with authorities to initiate a community development programme in Mamelodi where we plan to, among other things, create awareness in secondary schools about career options and the importance of certain subjects such as maths, science and computer literacy.
A problem that has not been adequately addressed is that universities produce an abundance of graduates with degrees in soft subjects such as the arts or social sciences where no maths or science is needed but for which there are relatively few job opportunities.
This has resulted in many graduates sitting at home unable to get employment.
We could accommodate many more interns if they were out there but the demand totally outstrips the supply in the so-called data science field which includes mathematics, statistics, computer science and business-related subjects.
We know from ongoing discussions we have with some of our competitors in the field that they share our view.
• Pierre le Roux is chief executive of Centurion-based Moyo Business Advisory (MBA). He is passionate about job creation and making a difference in South Africa
