| Thu 5 Apr 2001, 0:00 | | Indian It Skills Coming To Sa With Cs Holdings And |
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India's booming IT sector is to boost South Africa's IT skills base with the
announcement of a joint venture between JSE-listed CS Holdings and Consilience
Technologies. Through this agreement, corporate and career training material
developed by Tata Infotech, the Indian IT skills company, will be made
available in South Africa.
"India's example of IT skills creation and unemployment alleviation is one
South Africa urgently needs to follow, as spelt out by president Thabo Mbeki
earlier this year," says Annette van der Laan, CEO of CS Holdings, which has
been selected by Consilience to be the exclusive commercial partner for
Consilience/Tata Infotech career and professional training courses to the ICT
sector in South Africa
Consilience is two-thirds owned by the J&J Group (headed up by former cabinet
minister Jay Naidoo and Nedlac chief executive Jayendra Naidoo) and one-third
by Tata Infotech, a company in the 140-year old Tata Group, one of the largest
corporate organisations on the subcontinent.
"We are pleased that a partnership has been established between CS Holdings and
Consilience to present and deliver tried and tested products to the South
African market," says Dr Hasmukh Gajjar, CEO of Consilience. "We had options,
but CS Holdings was the natural choice because of its capacity, market image
and dedication to training and education."
"Tata Infotech was one of the first companies to respond to an Indian
government request for the private sector to boost the IT skills base," says
Robin Basu, vice president of Mumbai-based Tata Infotech. In the last decade,
India has become world renowned for its IT skills base.
"After surveying South Africa, Tata Infotech concluded it was feasible to
replicate the Indian IT skills building exercise in this country. CS Holdings
has strong market presence and maintains a high quality of standards in
delivery of training," continues Basu.
e-Commerce and software development will be the main focus of the in-depth
training, says Robynne Erwin, a director of CS Holdings' Education Solutions
division. "We constantly hear about the IT skills shortage in South Africa and
yet we have hundreds of qualified MCSEs who cannot get jobs. This tells us that
the current IT training is not addressing industry needs. It is the depth of
content of the TataInfotech courses and the fact that they work across multiple
platforms that makes them unique. They are not limited to specific vendor
profiles and thus exactly what we need to fill the skills gap," she says.
Training will initially be provided in Gauteng, Cape Town and Durban, but will
be expanded according to demand.
"This venture will make CS Education Solutions a major player in the student
career seeker market," continues Erwin. A new service division will be created
to meet the demands created by the curriculum, which is continually updated by
leading IT professionals.
"There is no reason why South Africa cannot repeat the Indian example, using
Indian methodologies, and develop a huge IT skills resource base which will put
this country on the map as a world leader in IT skills and solutions delivery,"
concludes Van der Laan.
Contact
Marthe Bijman, CS Holdings, (011) 205 7000 mbijman@cs.co.za
Robynne Erwin, CS Education Solutions, (011) 205 7000, rerwin@cs.co.za
Robin Basu, Tata Infotech, Mumbai, (+) 91 (22) 493 3560
robin.basu@tatainfotech.com
Hasmukh Gajjar, Consilience, (011) 447 3215, hasmukh@gajjar.co.za
Dawne Canning, FHC, 011-608-1228, dawne@fhc.co.za
