Software development company Syspro aims to bring business and tertiary education institutions together in a bid to develop and conduct training in ICT-related fields.
The company recently held its first annual Development and Strengthening of Industry-driven Knowledge-transfer (DASIK) workshops, focusing on developing countries and industry. The workshops, which bring industry and academia together, are geared towards exploring opportunities to expand technology's reach into education initiatives across SA and Africa.
Meryl Malcomess, marketing director at Syspro, says the industry can play a leading role in addressing the continent's ICT skills shortage. "We are well aware that the challenges facing education and the resultant skills shortage in Africa will not be resolved overnight, but technology is integral to enabling the solutions."
Malcomess notes partnerships between industry and education institutions could help yield solutions, while also meeting future employee demands for companies involved. The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University partnered with Syspro to develop IT training programmes that focus on mobile technology, enterprise resource planning and social media.
Shared learning
One of the projects showcased at DASIK was IQMates - a start-up aiming to create a system of shared learning by connecting university students and tutors from around the globe.
Houston Muzamhindo, IQMates founder, says the platform provides support to students beyond their lectures by means of tutorial videos, open forums and cloud-based course materials. "Other online learning tools exist, but they are too fragmented and lack the kind of open access model we have created," he says.
IQMates launched in 2013 and has resources for 21 courses, with more than 1 000 tutorial videos. According to the start-up, more than 3 800 registered users are signed up - a rate of around 200 new users per month.
"We want to solve the problem of the high university dropout rate - especially at first year level," says Muzamhindo. "The national first-year dropout rate is currently a staggering 40%. This is due to a number of factors, including financial constraints, a lack of resources and the fact that learners are not properly prepared for university at school level."
Muzamhindo says IQMates will focus on sourcing relevant content and garnering support from academics and corporates. "We also want to make our platform accessible on mobile and expand the scope of resources available to support high school learners."
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