This piece of this writing is done as part of the edx online course assignment.

1. The future of South Africa's upcoming
generation
South Africans expected that democracy would respond to their legitimate aspirations of a
better life, that it would be synonymous with freedom from hunger, illiteracy, disease, race-
based income inequality and so on, as they fought against apartheid (Centre for Policy
Studies, 2007). Although democracy has restored the dignity of previously disadvantaged
people, economic reformation remains a challenge in present South Africa.
According to the World Bank (2017), South Africa is one of the most highly unequal country
with a Gini coefficient of 62.8%. In the figure presented below the World Bank (2018) depicts
the level of chronic poverty in current South Africa.
Class sizes south Africa (2008-2015)
Source: World Bank (2018)

2. To lift South African (and other poor nations) out of poverty and to build a prosperous
generation, building human capital is essential.
Source: Google image
Human capital consists of the knowledge, skills, and health that people accumulate over their
lives, enabling them to realize their potential as productive members of society. It has large
payoffs for individuals, societies, and countries (World Bank Report, 2019).
The common way individuals accumulate knowledge is from formal education. For
individuals, an additional year of school generates higher earnings on average. These returns
will be even higher for South Africa as the low- and middle-income countries have a higher
return, especially women will reap a greater return. However, what children learn matters
more than how long they stay in school as they are part of the productive force in the next
generation.
The World Bank used an index called the Human Capital Index to predict the productivity of
future generation. It has three components:
 a measure of whether children survive from birth to school age (age 5);
 a measure of expected years of quality-adjusted school, which combines information
on the quantity and quality of education and
 two broad measures of health—stunting rates and adult survival rates

3. South Africa stands at 343 on a scale where 625 represents advanced attainment. It can be
seen from South Africa’s rank that the country faces a serious human capital challenge.
According to the recent South African Demographic and Health Survey (2017), 27% of children
under five suffer from stunting in the country.
The fees must fall movement was phenomenal amongst south African university students in
the past two years (2017 and 2018). My concern is that when we have 27% stunted children
whose ability to learn and have higher IQ is jeopardised, will our return on free tertiary
education feasible? I would argue that unless we invest in early childhood development, no
amount of investment would compensate for the damages (stunting) caused in an early
development stage of a child.
To achieve aneffective result in improving earlychildhood development government of South
Africa may invest in maternal learning and deworming than higher investment in tertiary
education where the cost is high is stunting cannot be altered.
Given the above level of stunted children, investing in the health and education of children
should be a priority in South Africa. However, the responsibly cannot be left either to
government only or households only. It is a collective responsibly.
Although I have focused on stunting to create awareness and see how big of a problem it is
in South Africa, the overall goal of this writing is to discuss the importance of human capital
to lift South Africa out of chronic poverty. South Africa can directly build human capital by
providing healthier diets for school children, by developing socio-behavioural skills like
teamwork and empathy and quality education.

4. Human capital development can be used as one of the strategies to achieve South Africa's
desire for economic reformation. As improved human capital means; lower incarceration
rates; higher labour market returns; lower crime rate and positive economic growth.