EDITOR’S QUESTION
WHAT ARE THE ICT
SKILLS PRIORITIES
FOR COMPANIES
OPERATING IN
SOUTH AFRICA?
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W Revolution (4IR) ambitions, as underpinned
by the recent appointment of a Presidential
Commission on Fourth Industrial Revolution
and the launch of the 4IRSA initiative.
The survey sketches a mixed future for the
ICT landscape in South Africa should current
trends persist. The 2019 results show Information Security
as a leading skills priority followed by a
cluster of second level priorities made up of
Big Data or Data Analytics; Software-as-a-
Service or Cloud Computing; and Artificial
Intelligence and Application Development.
its University’s Joburg Centre for
Software Engineering (JCSE), in
partnership with the Institute of
Information Technology Professionals South
Africa (IITPSA), has released their findings of
a survey of skills trends in the South African
ICT sector.
“Although many stakeholder groups are
making concerted efforts to improve the
competency and employability of young
people through some excellent initiatives,
the results tend to be counted in terms of
hundreds or maybe thousands of candidates
when what is needed is opportunities for
tens or even hundreds of thousands in
the digital economy,” said Professor Barry
Dwolatzky, Director of the JCSE.
With the aim of identifying current ICT skills
priorities and gaps to assist business leaders
and policy makers to develop strategies
for growing and retaining digital skills, the
survey also calls for urgent coordination
between public and private sector activities,
so that there is a clear relationship between
forecasted skills needs and the pipeline
to fill those needs. This is particularly true
for South Africa’s stated Fourth Industrial
24
INTELLIGENTCIO
“Once again the survey has highlighted the
poor state of education in South Africa and
in particular the very low number of learners
achieving competence in STEM subjects,”
added Dwolatzky.
“There are many initiatives attempting
to address this issue, but they tend to be
in relatively small pockets and are not
resolving the underlying lack of appropriate
curriculum, relevant teaching materials and
skilled teachers.
“One disturbing trend given South Africa’s
high unemployment figures, particularly
among the youth, is the dramatic rise in
employers recruiting overseas.
“This is unfortunate as it shows South Africa
is not making inroads into the opportunity
to skill and employ locally. In addition,
companies tend to train for basic or entry
level skills as opposed to the skills required
for 4IR.
“On the positive side, survey respondents
were asked a new question this year – do
they feel a responsibility to assist their
employees to reskill to meet the challenges
of the new era of digitalisation? To which the
answer was an overwhelming ‘yes’.
“The common thread is the urgent and
persistent need to raise the game in the
education pipeline and it is incumbent
on the private sector to drive the required
changes through partnership with
government and expansion of the many
initiatives taking place.”
The 2019 report has once again emphasised
that the average South African ICT
practitioner continues to perform multiple
task sets, with only a few identifying their
role as specialist in nature.
“Fundamentally, recognition by policy-
makers and industry strategists that South
Africa must rapidly acquire the skills to take
advantage of the shift in production and
business practices is only a tiny step towards
putting that knowledge into the hands of
people who can turn it into economic value,”
said Dwolatzky.
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