One of the real pleasures of my job is the opportunity to speak at overseas conferences, and a recent visit to a South African training event had a particular impact. In part, this was due to the country’s political history. Coming from a South Wales Labour background, my family marched against apartheid, refused to eat South African fruit and boycotted its rugby teams. It is heartening to see that this particular cause has been won.

Of course, such an outside perspective matters nothing compared to what the nation’s inhabitants have been through. Any visitor who spends more than a short time as a tourist becomes very aware of how conscious South Africans are of their progress and problems. The conference I attended took place 18 years to the day since Nelson Mandela’s release from prison. Local speakers were justifiably proud of the distance they had come and well aware, probably too aware, of the problems of transition that they faced.

The skills agenda lies at the heart of this transition and is critical to future prospects. Put simply, South Africa must get the under-privileged black population into employment in organisations that can compete in the world market. There’s nothing new in this. Such considerations apply everywhere in the world, but the challenge is more evident and visible here. Drive north from Port Elizabeth airport and you will pass townships with shanty housing and graveyards full of AIDS victims – all within 200 yards of the spanking new Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

The whole world is trying to achieve economic growth by moving up-market into higher value-added products that command premium prices. Such a strategy depends entirely on the knowledge and skills of the workforce. This is the Leitch report in a single sentence. If its hospitality industry is anything to go by, South Africa will be well equipped to compete. Its employees were thoroughly competent, reflecting a real investment in skills training. But retention is a huge problem, with many South African professionals opting for greener pastures abroad.

So what is different? One answer is precious little. The conference workshops on training evinced the same questions and answers that would emerge everywhere in the world. For example, there was much discussion on getting senior management buy-in, aligning interventions to business objectives, demonstrating value and, above all, securing the participation of line managers.

What is always different, though, is the starting point and prior receptiveness of the learners. Decades of under-investment in black education means that there is a lot of catching up to do and understandable political pressures to do this as quickly as possible. The government has introduced a highly directive National Skills Development Strategy. Organisations must appoint a skills development facilitator, conduct a skills gap analysis to determine priorities, develop a workplace skills plan, and present outcomes-based learning programmes.

They must also pay levies according to their payroll, but can claim exemptions and receive grants and refunds. The justification for this system is evident. However, there is a danger that the emphasis on reporting will distract attention from the real task of creating a climate in which people acquire skills through informal means in the workplace. Learning is not the same as training and driving activity through reporting inevitably means recording attendance in the classroom and the completion of e-learning modules.

Refreshingly absent in South Africa is the unhelpful suggestion that different national groups have different approaches to learning and need to be trained in different ways. There is no worthwhile evidence that people from different cultures learn differently and the sooner we recognise this in the discussion of the global economy, the better.

A final word on South Africa concerns the willingness to embrace change. What was so evident was a determination to work together and build a new future – this came from the gainers under the old regime as well as from the losers.

The new South Africa demonstrates that, under the right circumstances, things can change and results can be achieved. Yes, it has many problems: there is a dearth of capable managers in electricity generation, for example, a result of too rapid a transition and an unexpected high level of economic growth. However, the world should wish the country well. I’m even glad they won the rugby World Cup.

Martyn Sloman is CIPD adviser in learning, training and development. From 1997-2000 he worked as director of management education and training for Ernst & Young. He is a visiting professor at Glasgow Caledonian and Kingston Universities. He can be contacted at m.sloman@cipd.co.uk

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