While economic development seems to depend heavily on progress made in the technology industry, a report titled The Digital Skills Gap Index by Afrika Tikkun Services (ATS), which measures how well countries can meet the skills demanded, shows that progress is possible. not up to standard as required.
The index scores African countries between 1.8 and 5.
This is not compared to the global average of 6, which means that Africa has a lot to do.
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Failure of traditional institutions
But what is actually stopping countries from achieving higher scores? According to ATS, which is also a skills development and placement organisation, the main challenges facing South Africa include the disparity in the quality of education and the failure of traditional institutions to provide the skills the economy demands.
The organization reckons that one of the main issues holding the industry back is the persistent skills shortage.
While industry has been working with educational institutions to align the skills taught with those needed by industry, progress in this regard has been slow.
Private companies must step up
Onyi Nwaneri, CEO of African Tikkun Service (ATS), said that it is now an entity in the private sector to offer skills development programs to bridge this gap and get the ball rolling.
“There are no longer programs and systems that the government has initiated to create a smooth pipeline from school to the workplace for young people,” he said.
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“Partnerships between private entities, companies; NGOs and social enterprises have proven to be faster in some important skills development areas in South Africa. In many ways, these partnerships have led the way in creating result-based skills development initiatives that have helped thousands of young people -unemployed youth join the workforce and contribute to South Africa’s economic growth,” he added.
The technology industry is expected to grow by 12% annually
Nwaneri said traditional jobs and ways of working are becoming obsolete without informal technology-related upgrades, and as such – the perspective in the industry needs to change to align with this.
The organization indicates that the information technology industry will grow by 12% annually over the next few years, according to analysts at Simply Wall Street.
“We need to encourage the youth, those who teach them, those who work and those who raise them to take digital skills development seriously,” Nwaneri said.
Trends have shown that economic recovery is highly dependent on entrepreneurship.
“We need more young people who hire young people. A strong and multi-sectoral digital skills revolution is needed to create a workforce that will be hired and entrepreneurs who will continue to create jobs while strengthening themselves and their communities,” he said.
*Compiled by Devina Haripersad