A general lack of e-skills is a real impediment to SA meeting its commitments to the Medium Term Strategic Framework, the Millennium Development Goals and the World Summit on Information Society Plan of Action.
This is according to the Department of Communications, which plans to roll out three e-Skills Knowledge Production and Coordination hubs across provinces in the country before the end of this current financial year. These follow the establishment of the hub in KwaZulu-Natal Province in December.
The department says it is taking the opportunity to ensure that people have the necessary training to leverage technologies that enable communication, transactions and SME development, particularly in poor, rural communities.
It also says the broad-based ICT skills are also vital in dealing with poverty reduction, the creation of sustainable livelihoods, intensifying the fight against crime, building cohesive communities, international cooperation and in building a developmental state.
Minister of communications, Radhakrishna (Roy) Padayachie, says: “Our mandate is to coordinate e-skills training by involving all representatives in the ICT industry and groups from all participating universities.”
policy development in relation to e-skills.
Padayachie says through the establishment of these hubs in 2011, the ministry will collaborate with business, government, education, civil society (including labour), “to develop and implement new innovative models and practices for more equitable prosperity and global competitiveness in the emerging world of information societies and knowledge-based economies.”
The establishment of these hubs follows the e-Skills Summit held in July last year. The summit resolved on five top proposed actions for e-skilling the nation, namely developing and shaping the draft National e-Skill Plan of Action; supporting the development of sectoral e-skilling approaches; having a coordinated e-Skills Research Network; to establish regional e-Skills Knowledge Base Centre Network Hubs; and to explore and develop ICT access using differential transfer pricing mechanisms.
The e-Skills Summit was a response by the department in providing e-skills for South Africans to address the country's socio-economic challenges. If implemented correctly, the country would be in a better position to be part of the emerging information society or knowledge economies globally.
Share
