Skills requirements in South African supply chains: A higher education perspective

Abstract

In recent years, South African supply chains have struggled to move domestic and international freight efficiently and effectively. The purpose of this article is to determine the skills that students believe are required in the industry to determine whether there is a mismatch between the supply and the demand of supply chain management skills. The findings from this research suggest that, while industry has a need for technical (hard) skills, there is a stronger requirement for soft skills, which largely appear to be undervalued by students. This suggests that current curriculums focus on hard skills and do not meet the skill sets required by industry, which provides evidence of gaps within the current supply chain education programmes. This research provides an original contribution in that it is the only survey that gauges students' perspectives on logistics and supply chain requirements in South Africa and compares them to industry perspectives to provide a comprehensive overview of supply chain education in South Africa.

Analysis of Logistics Curriculum and Recruitment Requirements Based on Text Mining: A Case Study of China

“…Besides, there is a debate on the priority of skills and knowledge demanded by the logistics job market. The survey by Africa Luke and Heyns (2019) gauges students' perspectives on logistics and supply chain requirements and then compares them with industry perspectives. They confirm that compared with vocational students, university students rate hard skills as more important (Luke & Heyns, 2019).…”

“…The survey by Africa Luke and Heyns (2019) gauges students' perspectives on logistics and supply chain requirements and then compares them with industry perspectives. They confirm that compared with vocational students, university students rate hard skills as more important (Luke & Heyns, 2019). Other studies indicate that countries and regions affect the priority of skills and knowledge.…”

Demand-supply Mismatch in TVET Academic Programmes: What Is It and What Should It Be?

“…Additionally, higher learning institutions have a pertinent responsibility to educate students and ensure that the curriculum and educational components align with workplace requirements (Ali & Mahmod, 2017;Bakar, Islam, & Lee, 2015;Ghani, Rappa, & Gunardi, 2018;Hanapi & Nordin, Supply TVET Institutions Demand Stakeholder 2014). Nevertheless, past literature postulates that higher learning institutions have failed to ensure that the educational syllabus is qualified, skilful, and meets the industries and current workplace needs (Luke & Heyns, 2019;Valiente, Zancajo, & Jacovkis, 2020). Ngcwangu (2015) opined that these higher learning institutions have developed fault and failure curriculum models, and according to a few scholars (to name a few: Ali & Mahmod, 2017;Christenko, Martinaitis, & Gaussas, 2019;Cobo, 2013;Hanapi & Nordin, 2014;Sehgal & Nasim, 2020), this situation hampered the quality of graduates.…”

Investigating the Quality of University Education: A Focus on Supply Chain Management

“…Several studies have considered service quality in higher education, however, searches through several databases, including SCOPUS, ScienceDirect, EBSCOHost and SABINET using the terms "quality", "supply chain" and "education" have revealed few related studies. The "quality" term was dropped and the results indicate that the majority of research relates to curriculum development and the identification of skills to incorporate in supply chain education (Mageto & Luke, 2020;Purnomo, et al, 2020;Luke & Heyns, 2019;Colicchia, et al, 2018;Lorentz, Töyli, Solakivi & Ojala, 2013;Gonzalez et al, 2008;Sauber et al, 2008). Others highlight the importance of supply chain education (Erturgut & Soysekerci, 2011), building specific skills into supply chain education (Pekkanen, et al, 2020), tools for supply chain education (Holweg & Bicheno, 2002), and educational content development for modern supply chains (Li, 2020).…”