Madam Deputy Speaker, highly successful countries in the knowledge economy have up to 60% of the 18-to 24-year-olds participating in the college and university sector. In the case of Korea, it is 91%. The South African figure for 2007 is 16%. A desire in the short term on the part of our government is to get it beyond 20%.
About 2,8 million potential students in the age range of 18 to 24 are neither studying nor employed, and are not disabled. Of these, roughly 700 000 with Grade 12 are not studying, are unemployed and are not disabled. Of these collectively, approximately 1 million students can go into the college sector or what is often referred to as a further education and training sector. If that were to happen, our participation in the knowledge economy and in the university sector would improve radically.
If there was quality in the system, the contribution of the sector to our knowledge economy would vastly improve. There is a ready college level market on the supply side and the question is whether the further education and training colleges can respond quickly enough to absorb the students. [Applause.]