Chris Nissen, chairman of the Cape Empowerment Trust, told the Business Day daily that South African businessmen should learn a lesson from India and promote IT education to make the country a centre of excellence, in much the same way that India has done. He said that the strategy adopted by Indian business a decade ago of encouraging educational institutions to focus on IT skills had resulted in Indian IT specialists being in demand worldwide and had made India the country with one of the largest and most proficient pools of IT talent in the world.

But while Nissen felt that this feat could be replicated in South Africa to give a boost to the empowerment of the Black community that was previously disadvantaged under apartheid, a representative of the technology umbrella group Information Industry of South Africa felt that it was an overoptimistic view.

Adrian Schofield cautioned that such an initiative was unlikely to succeed unless the educational system in South Africa was addressed seriously, company directors began investing in the next generation of employees and restrictive labour laws were revisited.

"It is highly optimistic to say we have the talent to be a mini-India," Schofield said. "India's success was based on starting educational programmes in schools and universities to produce a high number of well-qualified graduates specialising in computer science. Until we get our education system into gear, we are not going to be able to compete," he added.

Current initiatives in South Africa include a skills development levy on companies, with the funds to be used for vocational training. But there is concern that this training will not be suited for people who may not have good basic education. Black students in particular are at a tremendous disadvantage as one of the philosophies of the apartheid regime started in 1948 was to deliberately restrict instruction in Science and Mathematics to Black students.

Ironically, South Africa has a well-developed IT sector because White students, who had access to many more facilities, helped the sector grow. But many White professionals have been emigrating because of demands for their skills abroad and their concerns in the new democratic South Africa, where there is no longer reservation of certain classes of jobs exclusively for the White community. While there has been concern about this braindrain, local IT experts say that the approach of the Indian government in this regard could also be a lesson for South Africa. Instead of trying to prevent emigration, India has increased IT education to create even more IT specialists.

A second problem is that South African company bosses are still concentrating mainly on making money, rather than seeing employee development as an investment. Schofield said the South African government needed to create tax relief incentives for companies to encourage them to fund appropriate training programmes.

The third issue that needs to be resolved to allow progress in the South African IT sector is labour legislation, Schofield said. "We have to be realistic. Our legislation does not encourage hi-tech companies to come and set up shop in South Africa," he said. "Labour laws here make dismissal of employees who do not perform up to standard a long process, and international IT companies are not willing to sacrifice their profits in a highly competitive market on that score," he added.

However, industry experts agree that there is potential for making South Africa as viable a venue as India for IT investment. "The real value will come from this being an IT industry initiative," said Nissen.

-- IANS