Opinions collide in IT skills showdown

By Christelle du Toit, ITWeb senior journalist

Johannesburg, 19 May 2008

The Information Systems, Electronics and Telecommunications Technologies (ISETT) Sector Education Training Authority (SETA) has criticised business in general, and Business Unity SA (Busa) specifically, for not doing enough to promote ICT skills development.

Busa reacted by accusing the ISETT SETA of not fully comprehending the role it plays in society.

In an interview, ISETT SETA CEO Oupa Mopaki said, while the state body was trying its best to work with business to develop ICT skills, not enough was being done in return.

"We offer all [skills] levy-paying companies about R20 million yearly to decide on the kind of skills they want to develop." According to Mopaki, if companies had been utilising this money properly, "we would not be in as serious a position [with regards to the current skills shortage]".

The skills shortage has been identified at national level as one of the binding constraints on the country's development, with the presidency creating a special body - the Presidential International Advisory Council on Information Society and Development - to address the situation.

Among other issues, this forum is trying to address where the ICT skills shortage currently stands, as this quantification has largely been lacking. The latest indication of this is a Department of Labour (DOL) scarce skills list that has pegged the ICT skills need at nearly 38 000, but this has yet to be confirmed.

According to Mopaki, Busa should be doing more to ensure companies do their bit in the scarce skills development drive.

"It really should be business, and Busa specifically, that is telling us how many skilled workers we need," he says.

"The term 'workplace skills plan' implies planning, but over the last seven years, what have we been getting out?"

To back up his argument, Mopaki says between 2000 and 2005, companies claimed back about R17.4 billion from the ISETT SETA to, theoretically, pour back into training workers.

"Why then is it difficult for business to say how big the skills shortage is?"

Charging ignorance

Busa has, however, struck back at allegations that it is not doing enough by accusing the ISETT SETA of ignorance.

"The ISETT SETA doesn't understand Busa's function," says Vic van Vuuren, Busa's COO.

"Busa operates at policy and advisory level - figures are not our game," he explains. "Busa does not have companies as members, we have industry bodies."

According to Van Vuuren, Mopaki does not understand Busa's approach, namely, to interact with sector bodies on issues like skills development.

This, he says, is where a lot of the problems with skills development in ICT manifest themselves.

"The ICT sector is not properly organised," he says. "We have some ICT bodies involved with Busa's work, but not one over-arching body, which speaks to the lack of proper co-ordination in the industry. This is something we are working on."

In the meantime, Van Vuuren says ISETT SETA needs to do more to educate companies about the options available to them when it comes to skills development and how to access funding for it.

"Often companies are frustrated by the bureaucracy of getting their money back [from SETAs]," says Van Vuuren. "Busa is embarking on a roadshow with the DOL to address this, but the ISETT SETA does have to do more education itself."

Van Vuuren concludes by saying that, while business can do more to promote skills development, "it is not a case of nothing happening".

Official backing

The labour minister recently backed Busa's stance, that businesses are getting involved with skills development, when he addressed Parliament during his annual budget address.

According to Membathisi Mdladlana, "employers are spending two times more than what the [skills] levy requires of them, and more employers are also claiming back from the system".

Mdladlana said more than half of all permanent employees in local workplaces received some form of training in the 2006/7 financial year, and the total number of enterprises claiming grants increased from 41% in 2002/3, to 55% in 2006/2007.

In addition, the number of employed people is rising as "between September 2001 and September 2007, we have enjoyed cumulative employment gains in the South African labour market totalling 2.1 million jobs".