Education budget must be spent on training youngsters in the trades: iLIVE

Adrian de Villiers, South Korea: It's a blessing that President Jacob Zuma and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan have allocated a budget to education and skills development, but we the public need to make sure the funds are used to build technical schools and further education and training facilities.

Gordhan mentioned that funds would be allocated to expand FETs.

This is definitely a good thing. At the moment, with about 640000 matrics and a 67% pass rate this means that while 428800 pupils passed, at the most only 250000 can be absorbed into universities, technikons and FETs. That leaves 178000 pupils with no hope of furthering their education or skills. It is a no-brainer that more FETs need to be built.

We need to make sure the government spends money on infrastructure to equip our kids to become artisans, and that the FETs are built close to high schools in disadvantaged areas.

The high school curriculum must be expanded to allow for subjects of a technical nature.