18 Aug 2022

The partnership between Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) and Peo Yarona is expected to augment government’s efforts in an endeavour to develop a more relevant and competitive human capital.

The partnership also seeks to enhance and provide a platform for continuous dialogue on the importance of skills development in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

Speaking at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two organisations in Gaborone on Wednesday, HRDC acting chief executive officer, Mr Meshack Tafa said the partnership would specifically focus on retooling and up skilling unemployed Batswana graduates in the ICT space.

Mr Tafa said the council’s responsibilities included planning, financing as well as developing human resource development plans that guided the country to produce a globally competitive human resource.

He added that the project was envisaged to equip them with the required experience and as such improve their chances of employment.

“It is therefore a milestone in the implementation of the National Human Resource Development Strategy and human resource development plans. Implementation of these plans contribute to the main enablers for a country, to produce skilled workforce that will drive the transition towards a knowledge economy and knowledge society,” he said.

He said the partnership resonated well with Vision 2036 which focused on leveraging leading information communication technology as a key contributor to economic growth and employment whilst also enabling an efficient private and public sector.

“This is also denoted in the eleventh National Development Plan (NDP 11), which indicates that training of ICT personnel, retooling of four skills in areas identified as critical to improve the economy performance and increasing the utilisation of ICT, improve the quality of graduates, thus contributing positively to growth in all key sectors of the economy,” he said.

He also said that there was need for acquisition of relevant ICT skills as the global community continued to speak of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) which emphasised the use of technology as the catalyst for efficiency and economic growth.

Furthermore, he said the World Economic Forum in the Future of Jobs Report (2020) showed that ICT related jobs formed part of the current as well as future jobs.

“These include database and network professionals, digital transformation specialists, software and application developers and analysts. The 2021 African Transformation Report also advocates for the prioritisation of digital innovation in Africa,” he added. For her part, Peo Yarona chief executive officer, Ms Wapa Chilume expressed concern about the growing unemployment rate which she said had been attributed by skills mismatch between employers’ need and tertiary programmes.

In that regard, she said Peo Yarona would therefore provide training on International Data Centre Authority (IDCA), accreditation for the first 100 unemployed ICT and electrical engineering graduates with relevant bachelor degrees qualifications in computer engineering or electrical and electronics engineering placed in the IDCA programme.

The company, she said would further place all IDCA trained unemployed graduates under Peo Yarona/IDCA partnership in various date centres regionally and globally.  ENDS