2014 has started in an exciting and productive way for the LMIP. Research teams are hard at work, gathering and analysing data and preparing to disseminate findings during the course of the year. Already, rich insights and evidence are starting to emerge and will be crucial to informing the development of a ‘credible institutional mechanism for skills planning’ to which the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) has committed itself.
With one of the LMIP’s aims being the enhancement of evidence-based policy making and the cultivation a research-policy nexus, the first three months of the year are also important for bringing stakeholders across the policy, research and economic spheres together in a series of structured engagements and consultations, to discuss and debate a range of issues that will inform the development of a skills planning mechanism in South Africa.
In January, the LMIP hosted the first of two policy roundtables (more below) which put the private sector in conversation with government to discuss demand-side dynamics in key sectors of the economy that are critical to understanding skills planning. In February, LMIP researchers will gather in Cape Town to engage and share ideas on the nature and shape of the skills planning mechanism and how the research findings inform such ideas. This is a build up to a second roundtable in March, where emerging frameworks will be interrogated by researchers and policy-makers as they seek to refine and start sketching the architecture of the skills planning mechanism. In-between, researchers will be holding seminars that will be beamed to HSRC centres in Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban. More detailed information on these events appears below. Do remember to diarise them!
As we move into the next few months, the dissemination of LMIP findings will assume greater prominence in the public domain. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on developments in the LMIP through our website and social media account.
Vijay Reddy
LMIP Programme Director
