Tech training for graduates

April 21, 2011 11:10 am 0 comments

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Eighteen municipalities in the Free State, Eastern and Western Cape will train unemployed graduates in technology and workplace skills in an effort to increase support to local government over the next years.

The three-pronged programme, titled Ubunye, is jointly managed by Microsoft, the South African Post Office, Development Bank of Southern Africa, Local Government SETA and the SA Local Government Association (SALGA).

The initiative has already trained local government staff in IT and IT support and senior municipal officials on how technology can support service delivery through a regional seminar series.

The Student-2-Government programme is a tier of the municipal skills development programme and will operate as a public-private partnership harnessing ICT to upskill and boost service delivery in local government and aim to deliver much-needed skills and jobs to the country’s young unemployed in remote areas.

“This initiative is at the heart of the Local Government Turnaround Strategy. We are looking forward to the results of this pioneering drive to improve service delivery at municipal level,” said acting minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nathi Mthetwa.

Based on Microsoft’s Student 2 Business (S2B) programme – which in partnership with the ISETT SETA has trained 5,500 students across South Africa – the Student-2-Government programme will begin with the training and internship of students from the local towns selected by the municipalities in May 2011.

“Our partners in training will provide the youths with three months of skills training and nine months of experiential workplace training. Following the one-year internship, the students are then eligible for full-time employment, either in Government or private sector as they choose,” said Mteto Nyati, MD of Microsoft SA.

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