ICT skills development is critical for South Africa to participate in the fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and reap the benefits of a digital economy.
This was the consensus of various speakers at Huawei South Africa’s ICT Talent Development annual awards ceremony at its Woodmead campus yesterday.
The event celebrated the higher education partner institutions and facilitators of the Huawei ICT Academy Programme, which was established to identify, cultivate, and develop the best talent through collaboration between industry, educational institutions, and the public sector.
“The ICT sector is growing fast and we must respond to its needs, especially when it comes to the future workforce. The Huawei ICT Academy is designed to bridge the gap between the skills demand of enterprises and the supply from schools,” says Zhang Yi, director of South Africa Enterprise Business at Huawei. “Huawei hopes to provide more technical and skilful talent, more advanced technologies and more emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship to support the sustainable development of South Africa’s ICT industry.”
South Africa’s Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Dr Blade Nzimande, noted that the imperatives of 4IR require drastic digital transformation and skills development to support a digital economy. “Digital transformation cannot happen without skills acquisition.
“Partnerships between enterprise, universities and colleges are an important way to maximise skills development in South Africa, as they have the potential to align curriculum design to the skills needed by industry,” he said. “This is particularly important for young people between the ages of 15 and 24, whose unemployment remains high at 61%, as this is the most critical period in any person’s life in determining whether you transition into a better life or remain trapped in poverty.”
The Department of Higher Education, Science and Innovation has identified significant skills gaps in the digital economy in areas such as cloud architecture, cybersecurity, data science, blockchain, machine learning, and robotic automation.
“The skills provided through initiatives such as Huawei’s ICT Academy are part of the future of South Africa as we’ll need lots of people who have acquired different levels of skills in order for the entire country to reap the benefits of 4IR,” he added. “We don’t only want to train people who are consumers of 4IR technologies, we want to train people who learn to be innovators and who will contribute to creating new solutions and technologies.”
Through the ICT Academy Programme, Huawei has partnered with 72 academies in South Africa to provide training, development, and internationally accredited certification to instructors and students across the country. Today, more than 150 instructors have participated in the Instructor Training Programme, more than 3 500 students have participated in online training programmes and almost 5 000 students have enrolled in this year’s ICT competition.