Skills for the just energy transition: Is skills research ‘on track’?

Abstract

There is widespread agreement that skills development is a vital dimension of the just energy transition (JET). Skills development for JET is rapidly emerging and involves complex inter-sectoral systems of skills development and new methods for demand analysis. Currently in South Africa, learning pathways into green jobs, enterprise development and more sustainable job options, including those required for JET at entry and technical levels, are unclear, ad hoc and fragmented. At best, we have fragmented offerings of courses and qualifications and few systemic approaches to skills analysis and development. There is also a narrow reliance on supply and demand discourses that are ill-fitting for the type of skills that need to be developed. Drawing on a group of regional and local studies focusing on skills supply and demand for JET, the paper analyses the responsiveness of skills systems, with specific focus on institutions and institutional arrangements that underpin skills planning and anticipation. The paper critiques the metaphor of ‘supply’ and ‘demand’, which, it argues, is the wrong lens, as it focuses attention on certain parts of the skills system dislocated from the broader conditions that they are imbedded in. We pose new methodological questions for engaged skills research that can enable a green and just future, and the systemic transformations that are needed to catalyse a low-carbon transition.
Significance:
The research findings offer a critical reflection on the current approach to research focused on skills for the just energy transition. The review highlights the limitations of the dominant supply-demand approach of skills analysis, and we argue that it promotes a neoliberal, market-led discourse on skills that privileges industry and excludes the voices of communities and workers.