National Government

The seemingly innocuous issue of skills and skills development has, over the past couple of years, forced its way onto many agendas in South Africa and, like many other prominent topics, debate has been heated, thanks in no small part to the relationship between skills supply and our political past. At the extremes of the debate, one man’s affirmative action programme is another’s dumbingdown process. But somewhere in the middle rests the reality that integration, co-ordination and IT skills development are central to any country’s success. Many prominent commentators, from Deputy-President Phuzile Mlambo-Ngucka to DoC deputyminister Roy Padayachie have pointed to an urgent need to for South Africa to develop the kind of IT skills necessary to drive service delivery and growth; everyone agrees that things look bad but, to date, there has been no official headcount to establish what we need and compare that with what we’ve got.