Govt, ICT industry talk skills

Johannesburg, 03 Mar 2008

Government ministers and industry leaders spent Saturday devising solutions for the skills crisis at the inaugural meeting of the SA e-Skills Council.

The council is an outflow of last August's meeting of the Presidential International Advisory Council on the Information Society and Development (PIAC on ISAD), which focused on the skills shortage and the absence of any reliable figures on that subject.

"The establishment of the council is borne from the fact that there is lack of a coordinated, coherent and integrated approach for addressing the ICT skills shortage at all levels in the country," says Department of Communications spokesman Albi Modise.

He adds the meeting was chaired by communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri and included the ministers of education, trade and industry, labour, DPSA, science and technology, and members with international ICT skills development experience nominated by the PIAC.

The council agreed to three priorities, starting with the "need to capacitate the working group of the council to collect, collate and synthesise existing data to arrive at a shared picture of the ICT skills needs of the country in the medium- to long-term".

This includes an analysis of the type of skills needed in the ICT sector, as well as the wider economy.

The council also agreed it needs to "study the implications of technology trends, global industry changes, current and future challenges in the domestic economy and possible emerging markets" for the South African ICT industry and its future skills requirements.

The meeting also decided it needed to come up with "a generic curriculum and content" for an "e-degree" that "will ensure graduates are job-ready in the context of SA's economic skills need".