Wits University’s Joburg Centre for Software\nEngineering (JCSE), in partnership with the Institute of Information Technology\nProfessionals South Africa (IITPSA), has released their findings of a survey of\nskills trends in the South African ICT sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The survey sketches a mixed future for the ICT\nlandscape in South Africa should current trends persist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAlthough many stakeholder groups are making concerted\nefforts to improve the competency and employability of young people through\nsome excellent initiatives, the results tend to be counted in terms of hundreds\nor maybe thousands of candidates when what is needed is opportunities for tens\nor even hundreds of thousands in the digital economy,\u201d said Professor Barry\nDwolatzky, Director of the JCSE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the aim of identifying current ICT skills\npriorities and gaps to assist business leaders and policy makers to develop\nstrategies for growing and retaining digital skills, this year\u2019s survey also\ncalls for urgent coordination between public and private sector activities, so\nthat there is a clear relationship between forecasted skills needs and the\npipeline to fill those needs. This is particularly true for South Africa\u2019s\nstated Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) ambitions, as underpinned by the recent appointment of a Presidential Commission on\nFourth Industrial Revolution and the launch of the 4IRSA initiative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c4IR is used, in South Africa at least, as a catchphrase\nreferring to all aspects of digital adoption and transformation, only some of\nwhich relate to cutting-edge \u2018revolutionary\u2019 innovations,\u201d said Dwolatzky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMuch of what is spoken and written about in relation\nto 4IR is part of an ongoing process of evolutionary Digital Transformation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 2019 results show Information Security as a\nleading skills priority followed by a cluster of second level priorities made\nup of Big Data or Data Analytics; Software-as-a-Service or Cloud Computing; and\nArtificial Intelligence and Application Development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnce again the survey has highlighted the poor state\nof education in South Africa and in particular the very low number of learners\nachieving competence in STEM subjects,\u201d added Dwolatzky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are many initiatives attempting to address this\nissue, but they tend to be in relatively small pockets and are not resolving\nthe underlying lack of appropriate curriculum, relevant teaching materials and\nskilled teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne disturbing trend given South Africa\u2019s high\nunemployment figures, particularly among the youth, is the dramatic rise in\nemployers recruiting overseas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is unfortunate as it shows South Africa is not\nmaking inroads into the opportunity to skill and employ locally. In addition,\ncompanies tend to train for basic or entry level skills as opposed to the\nskills required for 4IR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOn the positive side, survey respondents were asked a\nnew question this year \u2013 do they feel a responsibility to assist their\nemployees to reskill to meet the challenges of the new era of digitalisation?\nTo which the answer was an overwhelming \u2018yes\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe common thread is the urgent and persistent need\nto raise the game in the education pipeline and it is incumbent on the private\nsector to drive the required changes through partnership with government and\nexpansion of the many initiatives taking place.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 2019 report has once again emphasised that the\naverage South African ICT practitioner continues to perform multiple task sets,\nwith only a few identifying their role as specialist in nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dwolatzky says this is a red flag as it is unlikely a\npractitioner can maintain focus on specific objectives while juggling several major\nresponsibilities all at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is a glaring gap between unskilled and\nmulti-skilled practitioners and that\u2019s where one of the industry\u2019s most\npressing challenges lies,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFundamentally, recognition by policy-makers and\nindustry strategists that South Africa must rapidly acquire the skills to take\nadvantage of the shift in production and business practices is only a tiny step\ntowards putting that knowledge into the hands of people who can turn it into\neconomic value.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wits 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. The survey sketches a mixed future for the ICT landscape in South Africa should current trends persist. \u201cAlthough many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":29477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[298,19,54,9059,13,262],"tags":[1498,386,10216,116,294,1056,157,10214,692,10215,862,1155,453,863,6622],"class_list":["post-29474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main-story-newsletter","category-regional-news","category-research","category-south-africa","category-top-stories","category-used","tag-application-development","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-barry-dwolatzky","tag-big-data","tag-cloud-computing","tag-data-analytics","tag-ict","tag-iitpsa","tag-information-security","tag-institute-of-information-technology-professionals-south-africa","tag-jcse","tag-software-as-a-service","tag-south-africa","tag-wits-university","tag-wits-univertsity-joburg-centre-for-software-engineering"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29474"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29489,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29474\/revisions\/29489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}