SA high commissioner to India Francis Moloi has pegged SA's ICT skills shortage at 60 000 trained professionals. "That is what we need in SA. The need is great there."
He was speaking at a media event in Hyderabad, India, this week to announce Satyam Computer Services' South African ambitions. He did not elaborate on this figure.
"Our economy is growing well," Moloi told a mixed bag of Indian and South African journalists and analysts. "But we have an Achilles heel. Our people are not sufficiently trained and equipped to allow our economy to grow at the required 6%."
Expanding on the countries' traditional links and India's support for the liberation struggle, Moloi added that having helped free SA politically, India can now help free its southern friend economically, by investing in industry and skills development.
He later addressed a group of South African graduates attending a year-long Satyam entry-level training programme (ELTP), in Hyderabad. He noted that training ICT professionals is crucial to the success of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for SA and the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa).
Speaking about the latter, Moloi said: "A programme of that magnitude will have teething troubles. At the moment there is planning going on; there is a reassessment as to how best to implement the Jipsa programme."
SA can learn a lot
Moloi said he has already suggested to deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who runs Jipsa, that the ELTP be used as an example of best practice - not only for ICT but also in other sectors.
"We think we can learn a great deal from what Satyam is doing. This one [the ELTP] appears to be a very different programme [from its peers], but is also in line with Jipsa. So we want to draw the best practices from this programme..."
Answering questions from the South African ELTP contingent, Moloi said the country faced a mountain in reaching its Millennium Development Goals by 2014. "What gives us tremendous hope is to see in real-life how a programme that is well structured can work."
Satyam has, to date, trained about 42 black South Africans at a cost of about R340 000 each. Another 100 will start the ELTP programme in September. The company aims to become a major IT player in SA, so may establish a training centre in Cape Town.
"We have toyed with the idea of having a development centre in Cape Town," says Virender Aggarwal, a Satyam director and senior VP, as well as head of Asia, Pacific, Middle East, India and Africa.
For now, demand is too low, but that may soon change as staff numbers are still in the double digits (less than 100). However, country manager Chittaranjan Jena is confident it will reach four digits (1 000-plus) in the given timeframe.
The ELTP is not yet accredited with the South African Qualifications Authority, a situation Aggarwal says will change.
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