Technical skills in ICT sector need replenishing

This is the view of management at Ukuvuma Solutions, an established South African provider of ICT solutions and support to the engineering, mining and construction, financial, and manufacturing markets. This refers specifically to the lack of administration and development skills on the IBM product stack (incorporating Notes, Domino and Websphere), Microsoft SharePoint, .NET, amongst others.

Jason Smit, director - Microsoft Technologies of Ukuvuma Solutions said that the situation is exacerbated by the difficulty in training up junior staff and interns. "It takes a lot of time from senior staff members to assist, coach, train and mentor junior members of staff. The situation is also a challenge to manage because the nature of IT is that there are always tight deadlines that require input from senior-level staff, so time is certainly not a luxury," he explained.

A lack of ability amongst learners

According to Smit, the issue of skills development, effective recruitment and application in the workplace is compounded by what he suggests is a lack of ability amongst learners to enter the job market and immediately utilise their theory.

"It is not only a matter of a shortage of practical technical experience, but also of misguided expectation," he continued. "Very few of these individuals actually understand anything more than the very bare minimum and basics of the technology at hand, and only the very few that actually take the time to work long hard hours at home applying the theory come out of their studies being able to code or understand the technology.

"A lot of these youngsters expect to complete their studies, walk into a job and be able to do the job. This comes as a huge shock to them when they start with their first job and realise that they actually are not able to code and really don't understand anything more than the basics."

Although Ukuvumu Solutions acknowledges there is no silver bullet solution to what is essentially a global problem, Smit does advise those wanting to enter the ICT sector to apply theory as quickly and consistently as possible while studying - and ensure they have a thorough grasp of what has been taught.

He added that institutions that offer IT training should include more practical training and the opportunity for learners to gain early hands-on experience.