Fifteen students from Opticall (Pty) Ltd, a division of the SA National Council for the Blind (SANCB) recently visited AST for a tour. Opticall offers contact centre training to blind and partially-sighted students with the aim of equipping them with the skills necessary to find employment in contact centres, one of the fastest growing industries in SA.
Opticall is the first contact centre learnership environment for visually disabled students and is sponsored by the Services Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETA) and other partners including Syntell and Succinct (Pty) Ltd.
"The AST Command Centre is the ideal facility for trained call centre agents coming out of Opticall as it boasts best-of-breed products in terms of telephony and multimedia contact. It is also supported by enterprise management capabilities and related groups of specialised IT skills for exceptionally high first-call resolution - the perfect training ground for future call centre operators," explains Xandy Poinha of the AST Command Centre.
According to Dr William Rowland, Executive Director of the SANCB, this is a major step in providing visually disabled people with access to more employment opportunities.
"We are proud to be part of this innovative venture and to take on the challenge and responsibility, as part of our social responsibility initiatives, to play a part in the development of IT skills in our country," adds Poinha.
Research undertaken by the SANCB shows that the unemployment rate among visually disabled people living in rural areas in the county is as high as 100% while the employment rate in the corporate sector is as low as 0.25%.
According to experts, there are currently between 22 000 and 25 000 call centre seats in SA with an estimated growth rate of between 20% and 30% annually. Johannesburg hosts the largest number of call centres, with Cape Town following close on its heels.
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