This article interrogates the impact and nature of South Africa’s
post-apartheid economic growth performance through the lens of
human capital investment with a particular emphasis on higher
education. The South African economy has been characterised by
a skills-biased trajectory, ensuring jobs for the better educated. By
differentiating between tertiary and vocational training, we find
that further education and training (FET) graduates are almost as
likely to be employed as school leavers without higher education.
We analyse the extent to which the educational attainments of
labour affect the nature and trajectory of economic growth in
South Africa, by estimating Olley and Pakes’ two-stage regression
on a modified Cobb–Douglas production function. The results
indicate that the degree cohort contributes to economic growth
whilst other higher education institutions, including FET colleges,
do not productively contribute to economic growth.