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IT ‘skills recycling’ widens SA’s skills gap

Sibahle Malinga
By Sibahle Malinga, ITWeb senior news journalist.
Johannesburg, 11 Nov 2024
Hloni Mokenela, MD of Africa Analysis SA.
Hloni Mokenela, MD of Africa Analysis SA.

South Africa’s ICT skills gap is further exacerbated by ‘skills recycling’ and the shortage of teachers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

This is one of the key findings of the Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa’s (IITPSA’s) ICT Skills Survey 2024, conducted by Africa Analysis and sponsored by Software One Experts SA.

The survey findings, revealed last month, are based on an undisclosed number of polled employers and ICT practitioners across SA.

The research found that firms in SA’s ICT sector are recycling ICT skills – a phenomenon that contributes to the growing ICT skills gap.

Skills recycling is defined in the report as companies being stuck in the continuous trap of hiring and re-hiring from the same pool of skilled staff and ex-employees, instead of focusing on developing new talent and investing in upskilling programmes that aim to enhance skills and retain workers.

“This has created intense competition for digital skills in SA and has led to companies vying for a limited pool of digital resources by enticing talent with higher salaries,” Hloni Mokenela, MD of Africa Analysis SA, told ITWeb during an interview.

“It has also become a challenge for small companies, which may have training programmes to upskill some young employees who are straight from university, only for the big banks and big firms to poach them. The challenge becomes retaining staff that could potentially end up leaving for a larger, or an overseas-based employer. It makes long-term planning more difficult.”

Skills recycling has also led to an increase in IT salaries, with the firm capable of paying the highest salary being able to retain the employee, notes the survey.

The Harambee mapping of digital and ICT roles and demand in SA survey, conducted in 2020, indicated that due to the technical skills gap in the country, more than 28 000 digital and ICT jobs were outsourced to other countries, which amounted to an R8.5 billion loss in export revenue.

The high cost of digital resources also prompted many companies in SA to outsource their technical needs to countries with lower costs, such as India, a major global digital outsourcing hub, it says.

“As a result, SA ranks poorly in the Global Talent Competitiveness Index, which assesses countries based on their ability to attract, retain and develop talent. This has led to the growing shortages of ICT skills in the country,” notes the survey.

Impending shortage of teachers

Low enrolment of students for STEM disciplines at tertiary institutions and high drop-out rates at schools and universities are other factors exacerbating SA’s ICT skills gap, according to the IITPSA study.

The report also notes there is an impending shortage of teachers in SA, especially in the areas of STEM disciplines.

It references research on teacher demographics, published by Stellenbosch University, which notes that almost 50% of public-school teachers were 50+ years old in 2021, approaching retirement age.

As of 2019, the country’s teaching institutions produced 15 000 new teachers per year. This is below the target of 25 000 required to maintain an effective teacher-learner ratio.

Moreover, many teachers lack the capabilities, content knowledge and pedagogical skills to teach.

“The quality of STEM teachers who are adequately qualified also needs to be addressed – we need to really train the trainers because some of them are not adequately qualified to do STEM teaching or even to teach mathematics,” comments Mokenela.

“When high school pupils make it to university, the lecturers complain that some students initially struggle to attain good marks for STEM-related subjects.’

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