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Department of Communciations

ICT programme to address SA’s tech skills shortage

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:40

The Department of Communications has launched a new Information and Communication Technology (ICT) programme to address the country’s ICT skills shortage.

The National e-Skills Dialogue Initiative (Ne-SDI), which will be implemented by the Meraka e-Skills Institute (Me-SI), will produce workplace-ready ICT graduates.

Speaking at the launch on Monday, the department’s Acting Director-General, Greda Grabe, said the Ne-SDI will provide and promote leadership in the area of e-skills development in the country.

“It will directly impact on the quality of teaching at the institute, as well as the workplace readiness of students.”

The programme will focus on different categories of e-skills, such as ICT practitioner skills, ICT user skills, e-business skills and e-literacy, with a special focus on the social appropriation of ICTs

The Ne-SDI will eventually become a faculty within the institute that will collaborate with all the role-players to ensure ICT skills training are aligned with market expectations.

It will also focus on development skills certification, matching workers with jobs, support for career learning and skills frameworks and definitions.

The institutes’ Acting Chief Executive Officer, Dr Harold Wasso, said that through the Ne-SDI the institute will provide diversified, unique e-Skills education and training programmes.

“It will play a leading role by orchestrating the various existing and new initiatives concerned with e-Skills and undertaking an advocacy role,” he said.

To address the ICT skills challenges in the country, Me-SI, formerly known as the African Advanced Institute of ICT, was created under the auspices of the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research and the Department of Science and Technology.

The Deputy Labour Minister, Roy Padayachie, said global technology advisers warned the government about South Africa’s inability to produce the requisite skills, owing to our education system. “This process is a step in the right direction,” he said.

Academics, corporations and training companies are poised to work with the Meraka Institute on curriculum planning and course development to produce graduates who are work-ready, computer and business literate, he said.

The Department of Labour published its Scarce Skills List last year, citing a shortage of 37 565 ICT workers. There was a 6 000 people deficit in the technology, software programming and network engineering sectors.

Paracon CEO, Mark Jurgens, whose company supplies technicians, said the skills crunch had definitely eased as companies cut technology spending.

But there remained dire shortage in certain sectors, and improved training was crucial as technology upgrades could not be delayed indefintely. The government had to play a large role in technology training, he said, as companies were cutting back their training budgets.

Jurgens was scathing about the quality of SA’s graduates, seeing no improvement in the five years that Paracon had recruited from various universities.

“We put them through basic literacy and maths tests and it’s unbelievable how bad they are. I don’t know how they even get their qualifications.”

The Government’s Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) is focused on fast tracking the cultivation of 11 sets of priority skills, including the ICT skills, and has identified a number of bottlenecks in the skills pipeline, which needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

- BuaNews