Three years ago, Kagiso Mere and Thulisile Shezi were but two of an estimated 636 020 African learners leaving school (Human Sciences Research Council, 2000-2002). Of these, according to research estimates, 184 446 would fail to find a job. Their future looked bleak.
Then, a consortium made up of some of SA's most notable ICT organisations - including Cisco, CS Holdings, Sun Microsystems and SAP - set up an ICT Academy at CIDA City Campus in Johannesburg, and Mere and Shezi were two of 117 selected to attend.
The three-year course - free for selected students from previously disadvantaged backgrounds - consists of an IT foundation course in A+, N+ and ICDL in the first year, followed by specialisation in either Java programming and Solaris, enterprise resource planning (ERP) or networking.
This year, approximately 100 students expect to graduate with highly marketable IT certifications from the ICT Academy, as well as a business degree at CIDA City Campus which they attended concurrently.
Shezi and Mere specialised in the Sun Java platform, both were in the top five academic achievers for 2003, while Shezi went on to be acknowledged as the overall top academic student of 2003.
"The awards were based on our results for 2003, our behaviour at the ICT Academy and workplace rotations, and the fact that we did not fail a single exam in 2003," she explains.
Shezi is just 21 years old. She used to live with her granny and four brothers and sisters in the rural areas around Ficksburg. In many black households, an old age pension is the only form of income. So if someone in the household becomes employed, then that household immediately moves up an income bracket.
She hopes to open her own business one day, but for now, she keeps an eye on the job market via the internet.
"When I was in school, my future looked pretty bleak. Now, my family is proud of me," says Shezi. "I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to leave the rural areas and study here in Johannesburg."
The project addresses a major challenge facing education in SA: how to assist the vast majority of school-leavers who do not qualify for direct entry into higher education or the world of work.
Michelle Smith, project co-ordinator at Sun Microsystems, says it is against this backdrop that the consortium wants to set an example of how the private sector can address the country's pressing need for developing skilled graduates, especially in the ICT sector.
Her company has contributed a financial investment of R1 300 000 which includes 28 Sun Blade 150 workstations, a Sun Fire V210 server and training material.
"Because Sun believes training encompasses far more than simply providing hardware and manuals, we provided an instructor in association with training partner CS Holdings Education Solutions, as well as some of our own staff members' time to a mentorship programme that assists first-year learners in the workplace," she explains.
Sun Microsystems won the American Chamber of Commerce Silver "Stars of Africa" Award for the CIDA ICT Academy just last November, in "recognition of the genuine difference this programme makes".
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CIDA City Campus, incorporating CIDA Business School and CIDA's 12 Schools of Excellence, is an educational institution designed to develop thinkers and leaders to help rejuvenate the economy of SA through leveraging the finest knowledge and skills that exists in the nation and in the world. It follows a high quality, low cost, holistic, technology enriched and relevant mass-scale, contact higher education model.
The campus is based in Johannesburg in the former Investec Bank head office. CIDA develops future leaders to spread their knowledge to their home communities, teaching vast numbers of school students, community members and unemployed people about finance, banking and the use of computers.
Sun Microsystems, Inc
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision - "The Network Is The Computer" - has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at www.sun.com.
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