• MTN has launched yet another effort in attempts to reduce youth unemployment in South Africa.
• The “Digital Skills for Digital Jobs” drive will see the telecom host a course for 900 people to learn digital marketing, website creation and ecommerce management, among others.
• Participants will undergo five months of training with MTN and partners like the Media Information & Communication Technologies Sector Education Training Authority.

The largest telecommunications company in Africa in terms of sheer revenue share, MTN, continues to say it wants to help out with some of the ills befalling its home base of South Africa.

On Thursday, the firm said it was launching a new digital skills initiative aimed at young adults in the hopes of making some change to the massive youth unemployment rate plaguing the nation. MTN already has a skills initiative targeting children in economically disadvantaged areas, and a broader plan to develop coding among youngsters under CEO Charles Molapisi’s “one household, one developer” battle cry.

This latest effort is called “Digital Skills for Digital Jobs,” a first-of-its-kind project, as the big yellow telco explains.

A new course from MTN for young adults to learn digital skills

What this boils down to is a course that MTN will offer 900 people from across South Africa. It will take place over a 12-month period and will seek to particularly empower ICT sector job seekers, disenfranchised black women, youth, and people with disabilities.

The course, accredited by Media Information & Communication Technologies Sector Education Training Authority (MICT SETA), covers various skills taught in one-week training blocks. Participants will learn how to design and build a website using HTML, understand website development tools and products, and create and manage ecommerce their own websites.  

There will include a life skills and entrepreneurial module for soft skills development, such as creating CVs and a week-long course on starting a business. Selected participants will undertake three months of digital marketing training skills followed by two months of life skills and entrepreneurship training

The programme is supported by certain regional municipalities across SA provinces, the National Youth Development Agency, and the City of Johannesburg – all of whom will assist graduates with employment opportunities, MTN says.

“Our main aim is to ensure that local skills align with the demands of the 4th Industrial Revolution and enable South Africans to participate meaningfully in the African digital advertising market which is growing every day”, adds Arthur Mukhuvha, general manager of the MTN SA Foundation, which is spearheading the drive.

In a press release sent to us, Mukhuva says that the first cohort of participants for this digital skills drive began in June.

“The MTN SA Foundation has a long-standing commitment to supporting technical and digital education. The addition of our Digital Skills for Digital Jobs programme is an investment in our belief that effective STEM training should be relevant and meet the evolving demands of the ICT sector,” they conclude.

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