Growing information and communications technology (ICT) skills capacity is critical for future economic success. Telkom Foundation Head Sarah Mthintso explains how the foundation is building ICT skills and providing experiential learning opportunities that address youth unemployment and effectively integrate our young people into the broader economy.
The ICT sector, which is the driving force behind the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), requires a middle- to high-skilled labour force to be economically effective. Economies and companies hoping to remain relevant need to build the necessary skills to support the 4IR through effective training measures.
Growing the ICT sector will have a multiplier effect on the economy, given ICT’s role as an enabler of other sectors. With this in mind, Telkom Foundation’s ICT Skills Learnership Programme identifies, trains and deploys youth to a variety of host employers to accelerate the integration of technology in these environments.
ICT learnerships deliver skills and experience
The programme operates in partnership with Telkom and National Treasury as part of Telkom’s commitment to social impact. “As Telkom, our main aim is to equip youth with ICT skills to ensure that they are able to participate in the broader economy and to make them competitive not just in South Africa but globally,” says Mthintso.
Learners undergo four months of online learning, covering Media, Information and Communication Technologies Sector Education and Training Authority (MICTSETA)-accredited courses in information technology (IT) technical support, business development and systems development.
This is followed by eight months of experiential learning in the form of placements with a variety of host employers. Participants provide IT support throughout Telkom’s network of partners including government departments, corporates, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and non-profit organisations.
The learnerships are valued at around R83 200 annually. Learners are provided with the hardware they need to ensure their participation in online lessons. These include laptops, Wi-Fi routers and SIM cards loaded with 20 GB of data each month. Learners are onboarded into a zero-rated education platform, Telkom Lightbulb, for virtual learning. They also receive a monthly stipend.
Augmenting education with value-added life skills
The Telkom Foundation programme goes beyond its fundamental ICT skills development mandate, setting itself apart by offering learners value-added skills.
During induction the National Youth Development Agency coaches learners on professionalism in the workplace and a legal team is deployed to guide them on how to read and engage with employment contracts. Learners are taught basic financial literacy and are given the opportunity to open bank accounts, either with the programme’s partner, Standard Bank, or other banks of their choice.
The foundation recognises that some learners might not have experience with formal banking facilities, so have put a process in place to walk them through money management and how to budget for the stipend they receive.
Overcoming practical programme challenges
Securing learner commitment is an essential factor in the success of such programmes. Learners are encouraged to seriously commit to the process during their induction and are held accountable for absenteeism. Learners who drop out early in the programme are replaced to ensure that the opportunities the programme offers do not go to waste.
Hardware theft has been one of the key challenges the programme has had to manage. Learners have been known to sell the devices they received, replacing them with older devices and pocketing the difference. This limits learners’ ability to participate meaningfully in the programme.
The foundation recognised that gifting devices to learners ran the risk of creating a false economy that crippled rather than empowered participants. “Our monitoring and evaluation team advised us that learners really need to have skin in the game and a sense of ownership,” explains Mthintso.
Learners now contribute a portion of the stipend they receive during the first four months of the programme and retain full ownership of their devices. This intervention has resulted in a significant decline in instances of theft.
She notes that device theft and attendance issues reveal the extent of the social challenges learners may be facing. The stipends they receive may not be enough to meet their needs, particularly where learners are household breadwinners. The foundation is intentional about learners only having to take one taxi between home and their place of experiential learning to reduce their travel costs and limit attendance issues.
Employment absorption in a hostile economy
The programme has revealed the importance of absorption strategies to ensure that the skills imparted to students manifest in full-time employment.
The current downward economic trend offers little encouragement to companies to hire recently qualified graduates. The foundation hosts employer workshops to garner interest from companies but is also exploring and encouraging non-traditional ways to economic access.
The programme works with Telkom’s enterprise and supplier development team to drive entrepreneurship, encouraging learners to start their own businesses. This has seen several programme graduates set up their own township-economy businesses, offering laptop repair and IT support services.
“These are still small at the moment, but are a brilliant spark in changing the thinking that jobs can be created and not just sought after,”
comments Mthintso.
Learners are also encouraged to explore the gig economy and to make use of available platforms to secure freelance work.
Three cohorts, totalling 660 learners, have been supported through the programme since its inception. The programme has certified 57% of learners to date, excluding the current cohort set to graduate early in 2024, and has recorded an attrition rate of 13%. Absorption is 9%, with learners placed in corporates, including Telkom, government and SMEs.
The foundation is in the process of building an alumni programme to better assess the employment outcomes for graduates.
The lack of available job opportunities has created the phenomenon of ‘learnership hopping’. In the absence of employment opportunities, young people move from one learnership programme to another. The skills they have previously acquired do not contribute to the economy and they take up learnership opportunities that might be given to another candidate.
Part of the programme selection process involves working through the MICTSETA systems to ensure applicants have not been beneficiaries of other learnership programmes.
Future ambitions
Learnerships such as this one are in high demand. Its initial outreach attracted over 160 000 applications.
Mthintso says the foundation hopes to expand the reach of the programme, delivering ICT skills to 2 600 learners by 2028, enabling their involvement in the mainstream economy either through absorption into formal jobs or enterprise development.
“This may seem like a small number, but the Telkom Foundation is adamant that we focus on depth rather than breadth. We want to ensure that we support the targeted learners throughout the process to employment rather than deliver less to more learners,”
Mthintso explains.
Targeted interventions with partners will hopefully strengthen absorption strategies leading to long-term host employment, increased entrepreneurship and self-employment.
Zizi Dipa is one of the Telkom Foundation’s ICT Skills Learnership Programme alumni. Originally from Cape Town, she is now employed on contract by Telkom Consumer in Gauteng where she works with solutions architects to create the technical vision for solutions to business problems.
“The programme took me out of my comfort zone. It has given me exposure to understand how different people from different backgrounds work and how they conduct themselves, and also how to interact with different people.”
A career in ICT had not occurred to her as a possibility, but when the learnership offering came her way she decided to take it and see where it might lead. As someone who loves a challenge, her interest was captured when she was asked to programme her own website. Dipa hopes to further her studies, possibly even pursuing a degree in IT.
Nathi Kunene
Senior Manager: CSI
kuneneSN@telkom.co.za
www.telkomfoundation.co.za
Source: The original version of this article was published in the Trialogue Business in Society Handbook 2023 (26th edition).
