Ramaphosa was speaking at the Human Resource Development Council [HRDC] summit in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

“In the end we find that very few do not get jobs… I would say 90% do get jobs. This is where we are seeing a silent revolution at work,” he said.

Ramaphosa said this was due to the recent HRDC Adopt-a-TVET College campaign to promote co-operation between industry and TVET colleges. He said of the 50 TVET colleges, 24 of these had been adopted by companies.

“Thanks to the Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande and the HRDC, this programme is bearing good fruit. It’s for this reason I advocate that companies should come forward and adopt a college to raise the bar,” he said.

Ramaphosa said there were other important areas of progress.

He said the HRDC report explored the factors that impacted on the number of academics produced, including the reasons for the low rate of post-graduate enrolment and the high rate of attrition. The report had since been handed over to Universities South Africa and to the departments of Higher Education and Training as well as Science and Technology.

“Some of these recommendations require better collaboration between government, institutions and industry. Others require that our programmes should be better designed and that our interventions should be more focused,” Ramaphosa said.

He also addressed the issue of resources at universities.

To ensure equal access to higher education, he said: “We need to ensure that higher education itself has the funding required to achieve quality outcomes.”

News24