JUNE IS Youth Month in South Africa.
This is the month youth’s countrywide commemorate the fallen gallants such as Mashinini, Mahlangu, Steve Bantu Biko and so on.
Yet, the question is what is there to commemorate -when youth unemployment numbers keep rising at an alarming rate, year in and out?
Despondency, shortage of skills, poor education system as per United Nation, and very limited economic opportunities attribute to this phenomenon and it seems this will go on for generations to come.
But Prudence Mathebula, a Soweto born is communicating from a different software.
The (32) is the founder and managing director of Dynamic DNA; an Information Communication Technology (ICT) company.
She’s determined to close the digital skills gap for companies and upskill as many of the eight million, underprivileged and unemployed 15-34-year-olds as possible.
“By giving them the right skills for tomorrow’s job market, they can competently be absorbed into the labour force,” she said.
Her passion for skills development came after completing a degree in B-BBEE management at the University of Witwatersrand and joined Dynamic Visual Technologies (DVT).
While implementing a skills development programme that she had single handily secured funding for, and registered with the MICT SETA, Mathebula was stunned to find so few black ICT professionals and especially women, especially, after her family could not afford to take her to varsity.
“I saw an opportunity that other training providers were not doing but which was desperately needed in the ICT sector and that was providing companies with faster access to SETA grant funding, and learners with practical learning and mentoring component making them employable,” she says.
If companies prioritise learnerships, bursaries, skills development programmes and internships for young people, they can take advantage of these grants and address their future skills needs at the same time.
And the process does not have to be difficult if they form strategic partnerships.
“Because of Dynamic DNA’s SETA relationships, expertise and administrative management of the skills development process we have been able to reduce ICT learnership and skills development costs for our clients by up to 63%,” says Mathebule.
Mathebula, asserts that 80% of SETA grants are set aside for Pivotal training programmes for youth skills development including mandatory and discretionary funding. However, this funding is not accessed because the process is cumbersome, and companies do not have internal capacity or know-how to follow through on the process, keep an eye on Discretionary Grant submission dates and ensure accurate evidentiary documentation is in place.
For young people to even consider pursuing a career in ICT, they need to have the aptitude for it including being good at Maths, English and a passion for solving challenging problems, and the will to go for what they want.
And while IT is not for everyone when you understand that a critical shortage of skills is impeding South Africa from progressing and competing on the world stage, it is important to create awareness about the opportunities available, it is time for 4IR.
As a female role model, Mathebula is leading from the front by empowering women in ICT through her 4IR4HER movement.
She aims to promote and develop grassroots skills and create employment opportunities for 5,000 underprivileged women in the domestic technology industry and already has 15 women partaking in the
programme.
Image (ICT star Prudence Mathebula from Dynamic DNA ready to employ more youths).
