Johannesburg – Final-year information technology students at the Durban University of Technology will have an opportunity to equip themselves with vendor certification skills during a career guidance workshop this week.
The initiative by State Information Technology Agency (Sita), GovTech and IN2IT Technologies will see DUT’s 30 final-year IT students benefit from the workshop, which will be held at the Durban Exhibition Centre from Friday.
The workshop is set to, among other things, discuss the importance of and benefits that the technologies of various vendors and original equipment manufacturers (OEM) certification can provide.
Tshepo Mokoena, the executive chairman at IN2IT Technologies, said the company was making strides to contribute to solving the country's rising youth unemployment challenges.
Recently, Stats SA’s Labour Force Survey for the second quarter painted a grim picture of unemployment in the country – 7.8 million South Africans, 34.4% of the population, were without jobs.
“Given the fundamental challenges of employment amongst youth, In2IT Technologies and Sita are walking the talk and empowering students from the DUT with a vendor certification workshop that will bear fruit.
“Graduates who enter the job market are expected to adapt and be up to speed immediately. However, universities do not prepare them for this. That is why many of them end up frustrated and drop out of the ICT space entirely before even starting their careers properly,” said Mokoena.
The global ICT firm said it was confident this workshop would benefit the youth and increase their chances of being employed.
“Organisations hire for a specific position or function, such as an endpoint/desktop technician, server/systems administrator, or network administrator. “Typically, the roles are vendor or OEM-specific. For instance, a network certified by Cisco or a technician or engineer qualified by Microsoft.
“Since organisations have standardised on OEM-specific products from companies like Cisco, Huawei, HP, Dell, Microsoft, and others, the industry uses OEM certification.
“The certification gives the organisation and candidate credibility, as well as a strategic and marketing edge,” Mokoena explained.
The workshop runs until Sunday.