In addition to providing educational sponsorships for promising students entering the field of ICT studies, ISPA Inspires (ISPA's Social Development outreach) is collaborating with industry representative associations, WAPA and WASPA, on a social and skills development project to assist with placement of potential candidates in internship or learnership programmes, and employment opportunities with companies operating in the ICT sector.
Skills development is a priority element of the B-BBEE scorecard that requires companies to invest in the upskilling of black people, and it is a critical priority for South African ICT companies to nurture nascent talent in the sector.
The associations wish to enable and promote such ICT skills development, in line with the National Skills Development Programme, to provide a platform for the recruitment of interns to undertake learnership programmes provided by its members and, potentially, the wider IT industry at large.
SKILLS REGISTRY has been developed to address the challenges younger job seekers are confronted with, especially their inability to match their existing skills and talents with the requirements of potential employers in the sector.
Individuals seeking internship, learnership, or permanent employment in the ICT sector can enter their personal particulars and interests, including specific industry skill sets so that potential sector-based employers can quickly or seamlessly access, identify and recruit from the established/available talent pool.
The system will then be used by association member companies to provide learnership programmes, or full-rime employment, available to those registered on the system; or to source candidates that have been through a learnership programme and are now ready to be hired as full time employees.
Companies wishing to provide internships and learnership opportunities can search the database by application/language/framework (e.g. CSS3, React, NodeJS, Symfony, etc.) or job function (web designer, systems administrator…), using a “faceted” search interface. Potential candidates can then be contacted through the system.