Education, lack of engineers hamper SA IT

When it comes to having an enabling political and regulatory environment, South Africa ranks highly at 23. “It is important to have a well-run legal framework, effective law-making bodies, the protection of intellectual property and good financial markets as a pre-condition for success. SA has done well on this score,” said Mia.
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"South Africa ranks highly at 23"! Where the hell did they scratch out this ****? Our problems are not maths or science, but Telkom. Put your trust in statistics, bleu. LOL
 
South Africa was the highest ranked country in sub-Saharan Africa, coming in at 39. Tunisia was the only African country to pip SA, and was ranked 38th. LOL
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No wonder we think our broadband is so great with our IT skills and all, What countries are in sub saharan Africa? Are we compared with Zim, etc? What a fete?
 
Being an employer, I have to agree on the skills shortage.

We only advertise for vacancies in Afrikaans in a very limited environment. Ads in dailies result in 100's of chancers drowning the process and calling in rudely demanding one to prove that their application was indeed fairly handled.

We test applicants claiming matric with a spelling test, some basic arithmatic (with and without calculators) and ask them to write a paragraph on a subject.

Few, if any, will pass these simple tests - pass rate depends on the post and how desperate we are. 0 out of 20 is not uncommon in any of the tests.

In general, matrics can't add 52 to 48 without a calculator, don't know how to spell 'quantity' or write down the route they took to the interview in an organised coherent way. We get people claiming matric maths HG who don't know how many mm in a cm and cm in a meter, nevermind m in a km. (All do know how many cents in a Rand)

Then only we will start testing computer skills...

Perhaps the govt should also deregulate education to allow private education concerns to offer curricula other than the prescribed Pandoric ones.

PS: Any spelling errors are due to employees confusing me :-)
 
The problem isn't with a shortage of skills, but rather an abundance of chancers. I really believe our education (especially IT) is on par with the rest of the world. From what I hear other countries are worse off when it comes to IT education. The UK techies probably still believe that a dual A64 4800+ is entry level. The real problem lies with gov putting too much emphasis on useless education like history and stuff. We should follow the lead of countries like Japan where emphasis is placed only on maths, science and IT. Stop teaching stuff to people who will never use it. Teach geography to people who will actually use it like geologists or meteorologists. Biology to doctors and vets. History to politicians. And accounting to Telkom :D

As for spelling, some of the posts on this site leaves a lot to be desired.
When it comes to Telkom however their thoughts are VERY organised and coherent.
52+48=100 (took about halve a second)
 
I also have a major problem with kids who differiniate with regards to time. They are so convinced that everything works in tens or hundres that they cannot add time (60's) Quite easily say the time is 10:81 when calculating sunrise or whatever!
 
Prometheus said:
As for spelling, some of the posts on this site leaves a lot to be desired.
When it comes to Telkom however their thoughts are VERY organised and coherent.
52+48=100 (took about halve a second)
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Noticed! :D
 
Flame bait

Prometheus said:
As for spelling, some of the posts on this site leaves a lot to be desired.
When it comes to Telkom however their thoughts are VERY organised and coherent.
52+48=100 (took about halve a second)
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If you're going to moan about people's spelling, learn how to spell "half" first :D

*duck*

Did I mention the grammar?

*duck again*

Couldn't resist. Moderate if needed :)
 
Oops! Checked only the spelling of "halve" and "half" and forgot to check the meaning :o
 
Might have something to do with the terrible salaries most IT people here are forced to endure. If you have watched "The IT Crowd" you will understand what I mean.

Its not fun watching someone in a country on equal par to South Africa, getting a salary double yours with half the skill set. We have the skilled labour... we dont seem to have skilled employers. I also think the way IT staff are handled in this country is just not productive to their skills. The corporate environment does not often allow for ingenuity.
 
Are we still using outcomes based education in this country?

I'm wondering how they measure things like mathematics and science performance. By all accounts the US has a serious problem in this area, and the UK isn't doing any better. Are they really bad and we're really extremely bad?

Shortage of people in important fields can also be related to science and engineering not being glamourous, under-appreciated by the public and business, and not that well remunerated. Why do science when you can instead get more money faster by learning how to move money from place to place?

Not unique to South Africa, but we revere those who can perform physical feats, like playing some sport, but we do not even acknowledge the highly-skilled people who actually perform some useful task with their intellectual ability.
 
kaspaas said:
Being an employer, I have to agree on the skills shortage.

We only advertise for vacancies in Afrikaans in a very limited environment. Ads in dailies result in 100's of chancers drowning the process and calling in
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While you do appear to be getting a lot of uneducated people I think the bombardment is perhaps also a result of desperation.

Although I am not desperate as I am employed, I do keep an eye on recruiting lists and I'm not averse to applying for a computer job I want, but for which I have almost or absolutely none of the listed skills. On the other hand I can demonstrate that I can learn, fast. And if I don't hear back I may politely ask if they are still considering things, but if I am turned away I also don't start harassing the company or demanding any proof that they have properly considered my application (afterall I am well aware I am taking a stab in the dark).

Perhaps the govt should also deregulate education to allow private education concerns to offer curricula other than the prescribed Pandoric ones.
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As I understand it Asian countries have high success rates with a highly regulated education system. Perhaps, however, they do not jump on idiot fad bandwagons like outcomes based education.

Private education is also likely to be expensive, only affordable to a few. Those same few likely have highly educated parents who will probably make up for the alleged poor quality of SA schooling. I had an educated parent, as a result of which I learned science and math way ahead of the ages at which it was taught at school.
 
Prometheus said:
I really believe our education (especially IT) is on par with the rest of the world. From what I hear other countries are worse off when it comes to IT education.
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SA still has a good reputation because we do turn out quality people. Also despite claims of laziness and inefficiency our computer people and engineers are sought after overseas because they know their field and can be counted on to work twice as hard as the locals in Europe or the US.

I can't honestly gauge the quality of local education, whether it has been homogenised, i.e. the large number of horrible, under-funded schools improved, but those that were good (basically former white schools) being degraded. I do know that the schools to which black people were subjected were truly horrible.
 
w1z4rd said:
Its not fun watching someone in a country on equal par to South Africa, getting a salary double yours with half the skill set. We have the skilled labour... we dont seem to have skilled employers. I also think the way IT staff are handled in this country is just not productive to their skills. The corporate environment does not often allow for ingenuity.
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I find it depends where you work. Local software companies are in my experience mostly really good, and flexible, in their attitude to their staff. Because, yes, probably the majority of computer people are non-conformist troublemakers who don't take orders well and certainly have no tolerance for stupid school-type rules. In my experience engineers seem more generally obedient and conformist. On the other hand I'm an engineer and I've been called a troublemaker (ever tried to get a big company to change its ways and do things in a better, more sensible fashion? they don't like it). Certainly engineering companies can be very big on their rules, although nowhere near as anal as banks.

Pay is another story. You can definitely live much better in the UK or US (likely Australia, Canada and other places too) doing the same job. It isn't just higher pay, but lower costs on most goods, except housing.
 
noxibox said:
but if I am turned away I also don't start harassing the company or demanding any proof that they have properly considered my application
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What, you actually don't stand up for your human rights for which many have died? ;)

The right to demand proof that a job application has been handled in a fair way, is adding to the risk and cost of the creation of a new job.
 
heh was about to say that too, in Sa's controlled liberalisation it has caused engineers to find work elsewhere since the IT/Telecoms sector till last yr or 2 with the hype of breaking apart the regulations, has been very very old school/style. No need for alot of engineers except to maintain an already existing technology, and that can be done for cheaper by technicians too.

Unlike in the UK/US etc where there is massive competition which results in Telecoms firms having to develop the latest and greatest things to keep their income from existing cliental. Keep in mind overseas the trend is for lowering costs as demand increases and other newer services have to be created if telecoms companies want to keep the same value of income from a client.
 
If you look in the papers engineers still earns a **** salary compared to financial management positions. So an ambitious student would rather study BComm. than BSc. Add the BEE and AA policies and you would get a shortage. Pay engineers more and don't apply AA and BEE regulations to scarce skill jobs and there will be no shortage shortly.
 
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