2010 ‘information blackout’

“The whole world is going to rely on us for information, and if we don’t ensure that we have strong backbone, a networking infrastructure, there are risks of blackout of information,” says Alfie Hamid Cisco Systems SA’s area academy manager.

Hamid says the dearth of the necessary skills could also have implications for the roll out of the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (Eassy), which will bring much-needed internet bandwidth to a number of African countries, including SA. “We will need thousands of people to work on the cable, and we may not be able to reap the benefits,” says Hamid.

The shortage of professionals could also impede the success of e-government initiatives – where certain services are provided online – as access platforms need to be secure at all times.

Hamid says that focus on basic IT skills such as using word-processing, spreadsheet and e-mail packages has lead to the neglect of developing more advanced skills. “Had we not done the study, we wouldn’t have known that we now are in dire straits. By 2009 we are looking at a shortage of 113 000 network professionals,” he says.

Benjamin Mophatlane, the deputy CEO of Business Connexion, the biggest outsourced IT services provider in SA, says the industry is paying now for its cost-cutting initiatives of the recent past: “If you look in the IT industry over the last five years, it went through a downturn, and one of the reasons we find ourselves in this position is that a lot of companies do not do a lot of training. And the training that was done used to be very much focused on the Microsoft skills, the soft skills as opposed to the networking skills.”

Cisco Systems – the largest networking company on the globe – has developed a programme in which students are taught to design, build and maintain computer networks. Once a student has completed the programme, he or she obtains a Cisco-accredited qualification which is recognised globally. The programme is available in 155 countries, with 11 000 academies across the world and 48m examinations taken. Students are taken through an IT essentials course (which can be taught at school level), and also do modules on wireless local area network support, networking security and internet protocol telephony.

So far, there are 32 academies in SA, with 3 212 graduates and 2 634 students on current courses. Hamid says that together with the department of education, Cisco is looking at taking the number of academies to 600 “over the next few years”.

Already, there are a number of schools, such as Hoërskool Overkruin in Pretoria, that are offering the IT essentials course, which can be taken by anyone that has completed grade 10.

Students do not have to have engineering degrees in order to become network professionals; leaving high school with this sort of accreditation makes them immediately employable.

“All we need to do is get together as Cisco, and as the department of education, and get other private companies together and train our instructors and give them access to the Cisco Networking Academy programme, we roll it out. We can definitely meet those targets.”

Penny Vinjevold, a deputy director-general at the department of education, says high-level IT networking courses have been introduced at SA’s FET colleges where there are currently 400 000 students: “We have the capacity to take that to 800 000 for the first time,” she says.