The Vodacom Foundation Youth Academy (youth development programme) is providing South African youth from underprivileged backgrounds with the information and communications technology (ICT) skills training that will enable them to harness opportunities in the emerging digital economy.
Technology access and comprehensive digital literacy are essential for our country’s future. The International Finance Corporation estimates that by 2030 more than 230 million jobs in Africa will require digital skills. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs 2023 report expects that 65% of today’s primary schoolchildren will work in job types that do not exist yet.
The Vodacom Foundation recognises the critical need to develop ICT skills in South Africa’s youth. The foundation’s strategic approach considers the problem as an ecosystem that requires interventions at each level of education, from early childhood development (ECD) centres, schools of excellence, teacher centres and community resource hubs, to tertiary education and youth skills development.
“As a tech company, Vodacom is intentional in ensuring that we skill young people in ICT because we understand the divide, particularly in vulnerable communities where young people are not able to access this kind of training. Without it, they go out into the world of work and compete with learners who’ve been using tech from the age of five. It is important for us to ensure that young people acquire these skills so that they are able to compete in the world of work,”
Executive Head: Vodacom Foundation, Angela Abrahams.
Empowering SA youth with ICT skills
One of the foundation’s central social investment interventions is its R9-million-a-year Youth Academy programme.
The programme was established in 2014, in partnership with IT and networking company Cisco, the Media, Information and Communication Technologies Sector Education and Training Authority (MICTSETA), and software giant Microsoft. It offers a 12-month ICT skills course to unemployed youth who come from underprivileged backgrounds.
“We are very intentional about including girls and women in these programmes. So far, the Youth Academy has recruited more than 70% female participation.”
Angela Abrahams, Executive Head: Vodacom Foundation
Matric graduates who have achieved the appropriate school results but lack the resources to attend university receive accredited National Qualifications Framework (NQF) level 4 ICT training in IT technical support and hardware and software installation.
Spread across all nine provinces, the academy programme operates from ten of Vodacom’s 92 ICT community resource hubs. Here, programme graduates receive training that includes end-user computing, cellphone and device repair management, IT technical support and networking support.
The transferable digital skills are intended to improve their employment opportunities while also contributing their skills to the broader labour market, thereby increasing economic productivity, innovation and growth.
The programme costs of R100 000 per student are covered by the Vodacom Foundation. Tuition is free for students, who also receive a stipend.
The foundation will have trained over 2 000 unemployed youth by the end of the 2023/24 financial year.
SA’s youth unemployment challenge
South Africa experiences high youth unemployment rates, so despite the programme’s successful delivery of ICT skills, graduates have faced challenges in securing employment. The foundation has found that only 47% of graduates have been able to find employment and 7% were self-employed.
The foundation’s evaluations revealed that skills acquisition alone is not enough to ensure the economic participation of graduates. Insufficient work experience, lack of access to funding to start businesses and a broader lack of employment opportunities contribute to low employment results.
In response, the Vodacom Foundation has sought innovative ways to take its efforts beyond the original programme scope to improve graduate prospects in a tough economic climate. The foundation’s existing technological and community support interventions as well as partnerships with government and civil society, are being leveraged to enhance graduates’ future opportunities.
“Within the space of our expertise we have considered the role we might play to help alleviate the plight of unemployment that is endemic in our economy,” says Abrahams.
Closing the gap between education and employment
Youth Academy graduates stand to benefit from a series of symbiotic opportunities through the Vodacom Foundation.
Some graduates are absorbed into employment in associated CSI programmes, such as schools of excellence, ECD centres and partner non-profit organisations (NPOs) as paid ICT coordinators and training facilitators. To date, the foundation has employed 18 graduates as training facilitators and placed 195 graduates as ICT coordinators in its schools of excellence, ECD centres and with partner NPOs.
Bulelwa Sigwevu is one of these graduates. Unable to afford university after completing matric, Sigwevu joined the Vodacom Foundation Youth Academy where she acquired enough knowledge and skills to be able to pass these on to others. She now works in the ICT centre set up by Vodacom at Lady Frere Junior Secondary School.
“Technology has a huge impact here in Lady Frere because of the Vodacom ICT Resource Centre. People go there whenever they want to access the internet. They learn for free because of Vodacom.”
Through the placement Sigwevu has discovered a love for teaching children, which she hopes to explore further in her future.
Youth Academy graduates may also be recruited for the Vodacom Foundation Youth Entrepreneurship Programme, in partnership with the Innovator Trust. These graduates are placed in small, medium and microenterprise (SMME) companies where they learn entrepreneurial skills. This programme positions learners to build up their workplace experience and provides an opportunity for full-time and contract employment at these host SMME companies. So far, 163 graduates have found employment in this way.
Unemployed graduates may also participate in the foundation’s one-year volunteering programme. Graduates receive workplace experience at Vodacom-supported NPOs, schools of excellence and community resource hubs, where they are tasked with transferring ICT skills to NPOs, educators and learners to increase digital literacy. Abrahams notes the wide reach of this approach. For every two ICT coordinators placed in a school programme, up to 1 200 learners and educators receive the benefit of their expertise.
Programme graduate Nokuzola Setenane applied for the volunteer programme to gain work experience that will hopefully secure her full-time employment in the future. Volunteering at Standokuhle ECD Centre, she is inspired by the children’s willingness to learn new things.
“My highlight is seeing the children learning and understanding what I’m trying to teach them.”
Her voluntary service has given Setenane a deep appreciation for the struggles the community experiences. Recognising the difficulties facing children whose parents lack the education needed to help them with their research and homework, she has taken her placement a step further, offering her personal time to assist local children with their homework.
Future success needs collaborative partnerships
While programmes such as these are essential for uplifting South Africa’s youth, the broader socioeconomic challenges skilled youth are facing cannot be ignored. The Vodacom Foundation believes the key to addressing these issues is in strengthening collaborative efforts.
Vodacom Monitoring and Evaluation Principal Specialist Sandy Dlakude says that addressing youth unemployment requires a multistakeholder approach that includes government, funding institutions and other relevant stakeholders to create an enabling environment for the youth to access economic opportunities.
Further engagement with MICTSETA to explore partnerships with different employers for placement purposes as well as establishing portals to link young people to potential employers, could support access to workplace experience and job opportunities. Increased collaboration with incubator programmes, enterprise development agencies and government youth development bodies might unlock the necessary funding for start-ups.
As the foundation looks to grow the impact rather than the size of the programme, it hopes to develop and broaden the scope of its partnerships.
Inspiring entrepreneurship
Delivering skills development achieves more than merely giving young people an opportunity to seek employment. It also gives graduates with entrepreneurial spirit the opportunity to exercise their newly acquired skills and their entrepreneurial natures. The foundation’s evaluation found that several graduates either have, or are planning to, start their own ICT academies.
One of these is Senzeni Dladla, a Vodacom Academy IT graduate who is now the founder and director of INFOMedia, a digital communications agency. He learnt the basics of IT when he participated in the foundation’s programme in 2015.
“While doing that training I discovered that I have a passion for business. After gaining these skills I then decided to start my own thing and the business was officially registered in 2017 after graduating from the Vodacom ICT programme.”
His team comprises two full-time and three part-time members.
VodacomFoundation@vodacom.co.za
Source: The original version of this article was published in the Trialogue Business in Society Handbook 2023 (26th edition).
