The Global Business Library
Douglas Cohen (South Africa) - The IT Skills Gap is Everyone's Business (Part 1)
Globally, cities and towns are growing, both in size and influence (the world is becoming more urban – see my previous blog for IDG Connect) and there is greater devolution of functions to lower levels of government. Technological developments and major programmes are therefore not only modernizing and re-inventing the business world as well as how government operates. These dynamics continue to place technical skill sets in demand. It makes sense, especially if one considers the great need for technology to be the differentiator in both the workplace and in government, especially with the growing emphasis on the demand for improved service delivery.
Ironically, the greater government sees ICT as a mechanism to enhance and fast track service delivery, the greater the realization will be that technology on its own cannot achieve anything. Importantly, it is also having the right people and well-defined processes that together will provide services that the public can have confidence in.
There is a shortage of ICT skills in the South African market. That is a fact. There is however a difference of opinion on the scale of shortage. The National Department of Labour last issued a National Master Scarce Skills list in April 2008, indicating the ICT sector needed a minimum of 37,565 IT professionals to ensure adequate skills in this sector. However, the results of a more recent ICT survey, conducted by IT Web and the Joburg Centre for Software has found the department underestimated, by almost half, how many ICT skills are needed in SA. The suggestion therefore is that the 'real' skills shortage can be as high as 70,000 practitioners - more than 25% of the current workforce.
What are the more visible implications of this skills gap? Besides forcing companies to either pay higher and unrealistic salaries or to rely on people who have less experience than required it also encourages job-hopping among skilled practitioners. South Africa’s businesses have also followed the global trend and have begun to import skills from countries such as India, which may solve an immediate crisis, but can add to the cost and complexity of doing business.
The crisis of greater concern is rather the gap in the pool of younger, qualified, and experienced people. In fact, the number of students who pass mathematics and science sufficiently well to get into university is too low, resulting in universities not being able to take students in to do computer science, electronics and engineering degrees and ultimately resulting in not enough ICT professionals joining the industry in the next five years.
That said, while the industry has acknowledged that they do have a role to play in making ICT careers more attractive to young people, there lies a further disconnect between academia and business - and that, on the one hand, is the eternal criticism of the university graduates who are emerging into the job market that are lacking key skills needed by companies. However, the other argument, spurred by the fact that sectors of ICT specialisation continue to fragment, diminishes the strength or quality of ICT qualifications.
Where does this ICT skills shortage or disconnect all leave National, Provincial and Local Governments? Unfortunately the reality is with a staff made up of under-qualified professionals with watered-down skills that are not geared for real-life ICT crises and challenges. This negatively affects the optimal running of ICT departments and delivery of government ICT projects. It is clear that Local Government, in particular, will struggle to attract and retain ICT skills.
The smaller and more rural Municipalities (and the residents who live in them) are possibly most impacted by these challenges - their efforts alone cannot create a big enough funnel to support the demand for more ICT skills in their local markets. For example Gauteng Province, with three large cities, is the hub, with over 65% of the country’s ICT industry and over 50% of the financial services firms. Therefore based on demand and supply, securing the right type of ICT skills at a more competitive rate is far easier in Gauteng and possibly other in other large cities than in more remote and rural areas.
So where can we start to look beyond the challenges for practical, but also sustainable solutions to attract and retain IT skills, especially at the municipal level? I'll tackle that in part two of this blog - now available to read here.
By Douglas Cohen, Specialist in economic development and ICT from the South African Local Government Association (SALGA).
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Dear Sir, It is refreshing to notice your optimism in forecasting SA future economic growth but looking form the perspective of technical education...
Raluca Pauna 05-07-2012
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Skills Gap
Hello Douglas I found your letter very interesting thank you. I however have a problem in that those youngsters wanting to enter the market of IT find it very difficult. My son has a MSITP course and a year field experience and he just can’t find a job to support him whilst studying further. He has an excellent matriek with science and maths. He is now recommended to rather look for another field. Your feedback please.
Posted by: Lyon Pretorius
04 Jan 2012 | 03:13
Benched ICT Practitioners
Nice article. Worrying that we need 70,000 plus skilled ICT practitioners. Pity we have a VAST pool of benched/retrenched/"over-skilled" ICT veterans outside of the pool. I for one knows of at least 7 people with a combined skills pool of 145 years that are on the outside. And they cannot get in because they are either too experienced/ earn too much/ are too old/ do not have the "right" qualification/ are not BEE or AA. And if I know 7 people and each of them know 7 people we are already at 49 people, which would be 49 less in terms of the shortage. How do we facilitate the correct utilization of available skills in ICT? Use the "old timers", they can do IT!
Posted by: Theo Engels
04 Jan 2012 | 03:40
Solution on ICT skills
Our democratic govenement undone some or if most of apartheid govenment solutions, namely Technical collage education for those who want to quick entrance into ICT and any other sectors. Trimester Technical studies was the valid solution and I was affordable. I started to join the industry by doing my N4, N5 and N6 in digital electronics as an interns for Telkom. I lended up being a Proffessional Business Analyst for the big Banks via my undergraduate degree from UNISA. I take years to build a cereer but the quicker entrance is the solution.
Posted by: Siphiwe Mkhize
04 Jan 2012 | 04:06
Skills development need right context and correct speed
Hi, The acknowledgment of SA IT skills development gap is not enough and does not get solutions. It is strange that everybody is talking about shortage of IT skills in SA and in the same time in high schools and FET colleges the IT training programmes are downsized or misfit compared with the current global technical advancements. The decision to learn up to date IT skills that will foster innovation is part of IT firms’ strategic planning and firms’ leadership. The decision is characterized by a high reaction speed and aligned context with global external events. The way to do successful IT skills development is to create firms’ sensors to survey the landscape and discover the directions of technological advancements. Are SA businesses or Government prepared to interpret the present and design the future? I am researching this topic now at WBS and as far as my research goes my answer is “NO”. MS computer engineer
Posted by: Raluca
04 Jan 2012 | 04:10
IT skills Shortage in SA
Whereas there is a global shortage of IT skills, there are a number of barriers of entry into this field. If you scan the placement sites, you will see the "minimum" skills and requirements for junior staff. (years of experience, car, CCNA, MSCE, etc) Being a junior person having just left University or college is a very tall order or a means to exclude them as attaining all these requirements for an entry level person are unattainable. The costs for CCNA and MSCE are exorbitantly high let alone now the issue of "own transport". In the eighties and nineties there were Technikons which provided trade orientated education and both private and public sectors supported and this provided vast arrays of skills into the workplace. The academic orientation of all education is adding to the issues. Having said that, the barriers to entry need to be eliminated in total to allow people to come through the ranks grow into this sector.
Posted by: Walter MHLONGO
04 Jan 2012 | 04:17
Responses to Comments: IT skills Shortage in SA
Wow, I am very chuffed by the responses to this blog. Obviously IT skills and jobs are hot topics. While not in a position to address all the issues raised, I think there are various themes, such as existing skills that are being untapped / sitting idle, having the right skills, the barriers to entry and I suppose the role of government. Sorry if I dont address all of them. There is no doubt that there is wide description of what it really means to work in the IT sector. From my own experience those who have the combination of right background (electronics, engineering etc) and /or years of experience in different areas are the most successful. What is a challenge for IT professionals is to stay up to date and relevant and I think that speaks to passion for IT. If you son or daughter loves working with IT, then hang in there! That said, there are IT professionals and what we would call eSkills. Essentially the difference between someone who can programme, set up a website, maintain a network verses, someone who can use MS Office functionality. As a society there are gaps in both and I fully agree with the post regarding the "vision" of government. The power of ICT's have not been fully aknowledged in policy nor in practice. ICT's (people, process and systems) enable everything else to happen and are therefore essential. Especially in my world of creating efficient local government! My hope comes from seeing my 2 year daughter intuitively playing on my smart phone, and I think the next generation will just be born ICT'ed.
Posted by: Douglas Cohen
09 Jan 2012 | 01:59
Solving the problem
Much of the problem lies at a transactional level - the pernicious interface between the job seeker and the employer, namely the recruitment agencies. These are typically staffed by people who have no practical insights into the realities of working in an ICT organization. Recruiters rely on job specifications that, in most cases, contain copious lists of technological skills, knowledge requirements and formal qualifications (and, yes, BEE criteria) that are simply impossible to acquire and/or beyond the capabilities of even the most intelligent academics. These (usually) young and immature recruitment agents simply do a check list exercise based on a comparison of CVs with job specifications thus depriving both employer and candidate the opportunity of ever having a conversation in the first place. I contend that this results in many eligible candidates simply falling by the wayside, in turn amounting to waste of precious resources and ultimately constituting a serious loss to our economy.
Posted by: Robert Payne
10 Jan 2012 | 00:40
From Skill to Profession
I concur with the comments made so far, however I feel an important point is being looked over. Shortage of skills says two things. 1) not enough (or the required kind) ICT skills are trained to supply demand, and 2) not enough interest exists for young people to enter ICT as a career. With the connected generation born as digital natives, you are intuitively and constantly immersed in technology. You never receive general ICT training because you are adept to it. Because of this, you find many ICT jobseekers that are good at doing IT because they find it easy, but are not really IT professionals by vocation. This causes a problem later in their careers where they realize they don't have a passion for it. ICT is probably one of the younger if not the youngest professions out there, we don't have the legacy of medical and law professions or their organized bodies. A good test for me is application forms asking what your profession is (or someone at a dinner asking me what I do). I find it diffucult to answer since 'IT Professional' is a little vague, since the field is so vast. My opinion is the ICT industry needs to mature as a profession and truly become an organized profession. I can take my Doctor to the medical council, I can take my Lawyer to the BAR, I can even take my builder to the Master Builders Association. However I can take the IT-technie that just lost all my data nowhere. With a truly organized profession we can raise the prestige to work in that profession along with the skill and quality with it. The Computer Soceity of SA is probably a good place to start, but it always seems like an Acacemic club more than a industry watchdog with teeth. There is no prestige being in IT today (anyone can slap a PC together right?). And if ICT has to compete with all the other industries for applicants and new talent, we are on the sort end. ITC can pay well (mostly), but out of supply and demand problems, not out of respect that the profession should demand.
Posted by: Paul Wandrag
10 Jan 2012 | 05:28