ASSOCIATIONS
SMART skills centres can bridge the digital skills divide
By Yershen Pillay , chief executive officer of CHIETA
Last year , Qatar launched its first ‘ Education City ’ in an ambitious attempt to revolutionise education infrastructure development .
The city houses 50 local and international education-related institutions offering education from basic kindergarten level to doctoral programmes , all in one centralised space . Qatar ’ s Education City is located on the western edge of its capital city , Doha , and includes technology labs , primary and secondary schools , technical and vocational colleges , innovation incubators , and eight foreign university campuses including top global universities such as Carnegie Mellon ( a private research university based in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania ). This provides a central hub for education excellence and for innovation and collaboration to thrive .
In South Africa , the skills development landscape is vast and fragmented , with multiple stakeholders from skills development providers to skills authorities such as CHIETA . Recent data from the Boston Consulting Group suggested that South Africa had the largest share of mismatched workers , at a staggering 50 % of 30 emerging market economies .
The skills mismatch is a root cause and one of the main contributing factors to the high unemployment rate in the country . According to Statistics SA , unemployment in the fourth quarter of 2021 was 35,3 % with youth unemployment at a stratospheric 66,5 %. The high unemployment rates require decisive action on the part of government , business , and civil society .
Focusing on the skills mismatch as a root cause of the unemployment problem leads to a series of questions . Does South Africa need a grand strategy on skills matching and what would that look like ? How do we promote local and international collaboration in addressing the skills mismatch in South Africa ? Does South Africa need a ‘ skills city ’ in every province to bring together the local and international skills community for more positive results ? How we bridge the digital skills divide between urban and rural ?
A coordinated effort at greater collaboration may take the form of a dedicated skills city . To bridge the digital skills divide between urban and rural may require SMART skills centres in every corner of the country . This could form the pillars of a grand strategy aimed at enabling skills development for the future of work .
The concept of SMART skills centres is aimed at bridging the digital skills divide by taking skills development and training directly to rural communities . In this way , the cost burden placed on poor learners such as transport and data costs are eradicated , and learners are more engaged through the immersive skills experience .
CHIETA ’ s very first , fully automated , SMART skills centre is planned for Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape . This will be followed by the KZN centre in the deep rural community of Babanango . CHIETA ’ s plan is to have a fully automated , end-to-end digitised , SMART skills centre in every province of the country by 2025 .
Tung Nguyen | Pixabay
SMART skills centres may provide a means for addressing the skills mismatch in South Africa by ensuring that industry gets closer to talent .
This will provide the basis for bridging the digital skills divide in nuanced ways . For example , the SMART skills centres will provide digital boardrooms , digitised training experiences such as virtual reality ( VR ) training for welders and chemical operators , virtual interview facilities , free training courses with credentials , and many more digitised skills development and training programmes in collaboration with institutions of higher learning .
SMART skills centres may provide innovative ways for responsible organisations to access work areas such as digitised boardrooms and connect to services using affordable or subsidised workspaces . Our
SMART Skills Centres will reconfigure our value delivery model by connecting skills services and data in innovative and collaborative ways to create new value . Ultimately , SMART Skills Centres may provide a means for addressing the skills mismatch by ensuring that industry gets closer to talent in more digitised ways , and digital skills such as coding , software development , and data analytics , are popularised and provided to community members from the comfort of their own communities .
An increasingly digital world requires digital solutions , and CHIETA ’ s SMART skills centres may be the start of a digital skills revolution . CLA
14 www . coldlinkafrica . co . za COLD LINK AFRICA • July / August 2022