Yershen Pillay, CEO at Chemical Industries Education & Training Authority (CHIETA)

CHIETA, the Chemical Industries Training and Education Authority, is a statutory body with a mandate to facilitate skills development, education, and training in the chemical industry. However, current CEO Yershen Pillay says that the changing nature of business has meant that old ways of thinking about what that means have had to be scrapped. “The narrow view of our mandate is obviously to provide skills training for the chemicals industry, which, traditionally, would mean BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE chemical skills,” he says. “In today’s world, that narrow point of view is just not sustainable. As industries like ours and others digitalise, we are seeing a demand for what one could call crossover skills, skills that are as valuable in mining or retail as they are to our industry.

“For example, our for research shows that the number-one skill that petroleum companies seek is data analysis. We are thus duty bound to do what we can to deepen the pool of data analytic talent for the benefit of our stakeholders, and that means broadening how we interpret our remit.”

A vital mindset change here is that an entity like CHIETA has to look beyond its narrow interests, and accept that many of those it trains will acquire skills that enable them to get work in other sectors. That’s not a possibility that concerns Pillay—the principle cuts both ways in an increasingly data-centric economy, he says. One is reminded of the old saying in the IT world that IBM once acted as the “university” that trained half the industry, with its ex-employees prominent in competitor companies. But on the plus side, the company effectively created an extensive “alumni” network of people willing and able to work with it as solutions became more complex and, as a result, the industry became more collaborative.

An essential pillar of CHIETA’s vision is to overcome the difficulty that many communities in South Africa, predominantly in rural areas, have in accessing digital skills and opportunities. These rural communities often lack basic connectivity, and grinding poverty means that basic essential equipment like laptops or cell phones is not readily available. Pillay believes these brute facts rob rural youth of opportunities and starve the economy of brainpower and motivation.

“Bridging this digital divide is crucial on multiple levels,” he says. This realisation lies behind CHIETA’s novel scheme to create nine smart skills centres, one in each province, with the ultimate aim of setting up many more once the concept has gained traction. The thinking is to provide rural communities, particularly their unemployed young people, with a way to gain vital digital experience and mastery, and use the technology to gain a foothold in the economy by accessing job and partnership opportunities.

Smart skills centres have already been set up in Saldanha Bay, Gqeberha and Babanango. The next one will be launched in the Highveld Industrial Park in Mpumalanga, on the former Highveld Steel and Vanadium factory site.

While the centres come in different sizes depending on the communities they serve, they all feature several pods in which virtual reality and augmented reality technologies can be used, with other pods providing laptops for surfing the internet, doing training or even job interviews. Connectivity and data are also provided. “Just getting people familiar with, and confident in using, technology is part of making them work-ready,” says Pillay.

Another important part of the smart, intelligent skills Centre offering is a smart boardroom, which SMMEs can book for meetings with potential customers, investors, or any other use.

The smart boardroom concept speaks to CHIETA’s understanding that hand in hand with upskilling the youth, jobs are required, and that which means a more vibrant SMME sector. Although the National Development Plan relies heavily on SMMEs to provide the millions of jobs South Africa needs, the stark reality is that they are not doing so. While SMMEs make up some 95% of the companies in the country, most are purely survivalist enterprises that fail more often than not and never get big enough to become providers of sustainable jobs.

In contrast with countries in the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), where SMMEs are responsible for 60% to 70% of employment and contribute up to 60% of GDP, South Africa’s small enterprises only provide 28% of the jobs. A key reason for our SMME sector’s misfiring is the need for more access to technology. The US Chamber of Commerce says that small businesses that use technology grow faster, are more profitable and can create more jobs. However, in this country, half of SMME owners cite a need for more technology as a barrier to business growth (SME Landscape Report).

It’s this inability to access technology, now inseparable from business, that CHIETA is setting out to change, one centre at a time.

Of course, this is a hugely ambitious project beyond the capacity of any one organisation to achieve. That’s why collaboration lies at the heart of CHIETA’s vision. Pillay says CHIETA’s collaboration blueprint is multipronged and includes both public - and private-sector players. Existing partnerships with TVET colleges and economic development entities will be supplemented by collaboration with companies from the private sector.

Given that technology lies at the heart of the idea. Unsurprisingly, many IT companies see CHIETA as an attractive partner. CHIETA is breaking the mould by collaborating actively with its sister SETA, MICTSETA, the media, the information and communication technologies sector and the Education Training Authority.

“Very often, IT companies and their clients put money into creating well-resourced IT labs of one sort or another, but they often come up against the challenge of who will run the facility and activate it within the community,” he observes. “We have a solid, robust internship programme already being used successfully to provide that capability. That’s another change of tactic for us. Whereas we used to wait for the community to come to us for training, now we are actively taking what we have on offer to offer them.

“We have to get this right, and to do that will require a concerted effort by multiple players—and we are looking to the IT industry to play a role here.”

Contact Details:
CHIETA Head Office:
Mobile 087 357 6608 | Landline 011 628 7000
Physical Address: 72 New Road, Glen Austin AH
(Grand Central), Midrand, 1685
Email: info@chieta.org.za
Website: www.chieta.org.za