The planning that goes into skills development cannot be linear, owing to it being difficult to determine upfront what skills will be needed in the medium- and long term, and it therefore requires a move away from the prevalent silo-based approach that currently prevails, University of the Witwatersrand Centre for Researching Education and Labour skills development research chairperson Stephanie Allais said this week. As such, she advocated, education role-players needed to be embedded into economic planning processes. For example, where there were industrial planning processes, policymakers from education systems, educational providers or labour market intermediaries should be involved in these, as well as the other processes around building the economy.