Building Skills For the Future

INTERVIEW SUPREME ICT ACADEMY

Building Skills For the Future

Supreme ICT Academy began in 2016 with a collective staff experience of more than 60 years.

The Academy’s vision is to implement a blended training delivery approach to offer flexible options for our customers and learners. The Covid-19 pandemic ensured that the organisation accelerated the implementation of blended training delivery.

Passionate about empowering the youth through skills development, Mr. Bonisile (Boni)Gantile, Founder & MD of SupremeICT Academy, sits down for a discussion on the importance of digital Skills for the future of work.

Q. What are the Academy’s mainvalues and objectives?

A. Supreme ICT aims to assist organisations and individuals to build the ICT and management skills they require to execute their plans. For the solution to be effective there must be an understanding of what generic or specific problem solution is addressing. Supreme is guided by the following values:

• Listen and Seek to understand

• Link the solution to address identified problem

• Honesty and integrity in all our dealings

Q. Please unpack yur role at Supreme ICT Academy.

A. I am the founding member and the Managing Director. Thus, my role is to map the direction in which we move so that it is relevant, delivers value to society and is sustainable.

I also assist in facilitating supplementary work readiness workshops for participants in our employability programmes.

Q. Your organisation holds an experienced team of facilitators and curriculum designers. What is your opinion on the current state of youth employability and lack of work readiness in SA?

A. Unemployment levels in our country are extremely high; this is a ticking time bomb that needs urgent attention.

Unemployment is, however, not an easy problem to solve. I am of the opinion that there are two critical dependencies to solving the problem, one dependency being the capacity of the economy to create sustainable jobs, and the other being the employability profile of the unemployed population.

Q. What do you believe are the key factors that will increase the employability of our youth?

A. Sometimes we make the mistake of treating ‘unemployment’ and ‘employability’ as if they are the same. The two are related, but are different. For example, one may be highly employable yet find oneself unemployed if the economy cannot accommodate all employable candidates. Equally, one may be unemployed to their employability profile, whilst there are sufficient jobs in the economy - in this case the economy may import skills whilst the locals remain unemployed. Employability is the level to which one’s profile matches the skill demand profile of the economy. The higher the match, the higher one’s employability level. The World Economic Forum lists Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving, Active Learning, Complex Problem Solving, Technology Use, Monitoring and Control, Technology Design and Programming amongst the top 10 job skills for tomorrow.

Most of the listed job skills were previously regarded as noncritical soft skills. I view these as being key and generic skills that we should all have at a varying degree across all sectors as we transition. The technical skills such as IT, Telecoms, mechatronics and other science and technology skills will continue to be a specialisation The key factors affecting employability are the relevance of one’s qualification and skills profile in relation to current and future labour market demands and the behavioural profile of the candidate.

Q. Offering key skills development in IT, ICT tech and telecommunications, how is Supreme ICT Academy making a positive contribution to addressing the digital skills gap?

A. At Supreme ICT Academy we recognise that like all other Industrial or Technological revolutions, some skills become redundant, others get revamped and newer skills emerge based on where the economy finds itself in the transformation journey. We realise that a person might have a relevant qualification, but might require top-up training to achieve his/her objective, or similarly the organisation may need to retrain its team based on planned or anticipated skills gaps. To that effect, we offer specific short courses that lead to international certifications or offer customised short courses depending on the need.

For skills transformation or development of specific pipeline skills, organisations sometimes want a full SAQA accredited qualification to be used for a learnership or part qualification to be used for an internship or skills programme.

To address this challenge, we are accredited for End User Computer NQF3, Telecommunications Network Operations NQF4 and Technical Support NQF 4, and we are currently busy expanding our scope of accreditation by 10 additional SAQA registered qualifications.

We are also a recognised CompTIA Training Delivery Partner which allows us to offer international certification courses to build IT skills in Computer Software & Hardware, Computer Networking Skills, Network Security Professional (CNSP) etc.

Between 2018 and 2020, in partnership with a National Department and a large South African Corporate, we have managed to build telecommunication field operations skills and fibre splicing skills to more than 1000 unemployed youth nationally using structured credit-bearing skills programmes. Some of the participants have since got employed and others operate small businesses whilst others, unfortunately, remain unemployed.

Q. Why are you so passionate about the concept of Learnership Programmes?

A. Learnership Programmes contain structured academic and workplace learning. The Learnership and related such as Internship, and Work Integrated Learning (WIL) give youth an opportunity to apply learnt theory in practice whilst they gain real life experience.

The added advantage for the participants is that their visible active participation in experiential learning at the workplace, markets their capability to the potential employer, this speaks volumes compared to sending a CV. I have noticed employers being impressed by the actual displayed skill such that they offer the participant permanent opportunity without waiting for the programme, particularly in internships.

Q. How can SA successfully foster “Digital Citizenship”?

A. Organisations must recognise and utilise the employees who acquire digital skills whenever it is possible. Individuals must recognise that being a Digital citizen is also beneficial for personal productivity and social contribution and they, therefore, should not wait for the employer to sponsor training where possible. With a little bit of research, youth can gain access to free training content on Digital skills. Organisations can integrate Digital Citizenship training as part of a planned transformation agenda from time to time. To ensure that the sponsored pipelines are also Digital Citizens , we could include Basic Word Processing, Spreadsheets and Presentation Application etc. to be an integral part of sponsored skills programmes.

Q. Digital skills are transferable both locally and globally. What tips do you have for learners and corporates in terms of adopting a global mindset for the future?

A. In planning your career, it is important to understand whether the skills you want to acquire have local or global relevance or both. Getting the skill with global relevance means that you can export your acquired skill and work in any country of your choice either as an expatriate of an SA company global presence or through a foreign owned international company.

South African Youth have got to recognise that the world is their playground. If they possess emerging and globally relevant skills, they must not be shy to seek global opportunities.

Q. Do you foresee any new trends emerging in your field in the next 3-5 years?

A. Although the Blended Learning concept, which is a combination of classroom and online, has been implemented at a very slow scale, Covid-19 has accelerated the increase in usage of online learning, and blended learning is fast becoming a new normal in cases where practical learning is critical. Macro learning is fast becoming regular and is beneficial to meet the short attention span of the modern days. With the further maturity of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics and Virtualisation, the training business model will not be immune from these disruptive technologies.

l anticipate that adoption of macro training nuggets based on virtual reality as opposed to standard text or video and text based e-learning will accelerate.

More training institutions will build their online training delivery capability including academic institutions.

Q. What advice do you have for school leavers as they approach the workplace?

A. Unlike at school where your performance affects only you as an individual, your performance at the workplace impacts the team and has consequences for profitability and sustainability of the organisation. It is important to learn and understand the culture of the particular workplace to be able to see if there are no major differences, so that you can decide whether or not you would want to continue with your career in that workplace.

Actively engage and participate during work and team meetings, remember that even if you do not have the experience, you may have the intelligence and relevant theoretical knowledge on the issue and your input may be valuable. Asking questions to seek clarity or understanding is not a sign of stupidity but is an opportunity for personal growth. Be curious, research and ask questions.

Remember that whilst the acquired technical skill is critical for employment, employers hire for attitude. They will not hesitate to choose someone with potential and the right attitude over someone skilled with a bad one.

Social networks are increasingly becoming the source of reference about who you are, and must be used wisely. •

Address: Suite102/3 Lougardia Building, 1262 Embankment Road 0157 Centurion, South Africa Email: info@supremeictacademy.co.za Website: sicta.co.za Tel: 012 534 3801