January 10, 2023 at 5:50
TEVETA has partnered with the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation to create relevant platform for delivering digital skills for entrepreneurs, youths, women and career explorers in the country, particularly in the TEVET sector. IMB has provided a customized Uniform Resource Locators (URL) for Zambians to access digital skills for the world of work, business efficiency and personal digital competencies. The partnership entails that courses are FREE for Zambians. The country’s dedicated URL is https://sb-auth.skillsbuild.org/signup?ngo-id=0113&mgr=1177815REG.
Some of the digital skills include cyber security analysis, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, enterprise computing, open source software, among others. Some tailor-made courses to meet the Zambian digital skills requirements will be designed for different target groups besides the general ones predesigned by International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation under SkillsBuild Initiative. Demand driven skills will be developed to meet different citizens' digital skills needs at work, business world and personal digital skills development.
IBM SkillsBuild Initiative offers more than 1, 000 online courses, shareable badges & e-certificates upon successful completion of topics ranging from professional workplace proficiencies to technical skills for industry roles and technologies.
SkillBuild initiative targets youths, women, entrepreneurs and career explorers who need critical digital stills for their employability, business efficiency and productivity. E-certificates are available after successful completion of modules for each digital skills programme.
The courses under SkillBuild are paid for by UNCDF to promote accessible digital economies. Key segments include youth, women, MSMEs and refugees. UNCDF works with public & private sector to meet the Sustainable Development Goals through the creation of a Digital Economy.
Zambia’s young population provides both an opportunity and an incentive to integrate digital technology in the country’s economy by all available means. The youth are evident early adopters of digital technologies; hence there is need harness the youth’s digital literacy levels to create a solid foundation to actualize our digital economy vision.
However, poor digital skills are among the main bottlenecks to increased adoption of digital technologies in the country. Enhancing digital skills is critical for the country using many approaches. Public-private partnerships are key approaches in enhancing digital skills acquisition interests of our workforce.
