Denis Opudo
The job sector is changing at the highest speed globally. It is projected that come 2020, approximately 39% of vital skills needed across all jobs in South Africa will be different from the current ones. The main challenge is in the skill development sectors. They need to up their game hence keep up with the challenge. Employees within the country sites also lack skills as the main problem to their ability to compete in the global economy. This is according to report released in 2017 by World Economic Forum (WEF). There should be an effective dialogue between cooperates and education providers. The dialogue that will bear fruitful results will be of much help to the country.
Many training programs are not adapting to changing the business landscape. That makes them unreliable in accommodating the evolving workforce. The skill gap hindering the continent is because many jobs are moving to digital technologies. Over the last decade, average ICT intensity of jobs in South Africa increased by 26%. The youth unemployment in South Africa has moved from 27.7% to 67.4%. The government needs to work on making the youth more relevant for the current job market. The current job market has been named Fourth Industrial Revolution.
WeThinkCode organization is training South Africans in software engineering. Those attending training come from all walks of life. The organization is training anyone between the age of 17 and 35 who passes the entrance test. They also offer the tuition-free program, and it is a peer-peer technology university. There is no need for any prior coding and matric is optional. WeThinkCode is partnering with vital players in the tech industry. Many of them are cooperate sponsors and fund the program. The organization ensures that it offers up to date training. This is through using the current technologies. The technologies applied can solve the current problems.
Peer-peer-groups help students to learn to code since there are no teachers and classes. Students are also in a position to test each other’s work and make necessary adjustments. South Africa’s future lies in the hands of common entrepreneurs and youths. Every sector in the land should, therefore, support youths and small businesses. V&A Waterfront used that idea to launch their Workshop17. Workshop17 it’s a business innovation camp. It was started in 2015 and has been received positively. V&A Waterfront partnered with WeThinkCode to help in training the youths. Both Workshop17 and WeThinkCode believe in working together to solve problems. That is the only way of making progress. This is by offering a unique space where there are no formal trainers.
