ICT Skills in South Africa

This website contains materials related to the National Colloquium on Information and Communication Technology Education and Training and the Production of Graduates, held on Monday 19 March 2007.  This Colloquium brought together representatives of government, universities and the ICT industry in a ground-breaking cooperative venture to address the need for high-level skills in the ICT sector.

Speeches and Presentations

• Minister Pandor's Speech
• Mark Harris' Presentation (IBM)
• Bonisile Gantile's Presentation (Telkom)
• Dillo Lehlokoe's Presentation (JIPSA)
• George Wells' Presentation (Universities)
• Andrew Paterson's Presentation (HSRC Research)

Minutes of the Discussion

Birchwood Declaration

• Birchwood Declaration for Tertiary Level ICT Skills Development

Other Materials

• Preliminary Report (a brief overview of the Colloquium and main points of discussion)
• HoD Questionnaire Summary (data collected from heads of CS/IS departments)
• Press Release (released by the DoE and Rhodes University)

Outcomes and Progress Reports

• SAICSIT have agreed to host the first of the biannual research "think tank" meetings proposed in the Birchwood Declaration.  This will be co-located with the SAICSIT 2008 conference to be held in Wilderness from 6–8 October 2008.  The meeting will be jointly organised by SAICSIT, the CSSA and Rhodes University.

Related Links

• SAQA released its latest volume "Trends in Public Higher Education in South Africa 1995 to 2004" on 15 June 2007.
• Workforce crisis: Preparing for the coming IT crunch - Ready or not, a shortage of IT talent is coming. Here's how to prepare, Kathleen Melymuka, ComputerWorld, July 2006.
• A further threat to SA's ICT Skills shortage - ICT and engineering skills are high on the list of 20 million people that the EU hopes to attract with its Blue Card, October 2007.