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Lack of IT specialists in South Africa!
South Africa, Africa's biggest economy, may see efforts to lift growth to six percent stymied by a shortage of computer networking specialists that is projected to reach 24 percent by 2009, according to a survey.
The industry may face a gap of as many as 113 900 skilled people such as information technology technicians and engineers, the study, conducted by Industrial Data Corporation and commissioned by the local unit of Cisco Systems, showed. Cisco is the world's biggest maker of computer networking equipment.
President Thabo Mbeki's government is battling a skills shortage created during apartheid when blacks got inferior education to whites, relegating them to jobs as miners, farm workers and domestic servants. Accelerating economic growth will exacerbate the shortage of experts in information communication technology, IDC analyst Phillip van Heerden said.
Demand for networking skills still outstrips supply and is accentuated by high economic growth in South Africa,'' he said in an e-mailed statement that was distributed at news conference in Pretoria on Thursday.
By contrast, Western and Eastern Europe would have a skills gap of 11.8 percent by 2008, according to the study.
South African economic growth climbed 4.9 percent in 2005, the highest in 21 years. Mbeki wants growth to reach 6 percent by 2006, to halve an unemployment rate of 26.7 percent, the highest among 61 countries monitored by Bloomberg.
Through the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative South Africa, the government is trying to attract skills in fields from construction to information technology.
Cisco has 32 academies training more than 3 000 students in networking technologies in South Africa. Contact New Horizons for more information about our CISCO courses!