News / National
Telone carries out a skills assessment exercise for workers
22 May 2016 at 07:03hrs | Views
Deputy Minister of Information, Communication Technology Postal and Courier Services Win Mlambo has said Telone has carried out a skills assessment exercise for the workers who do not have five ordinary levels.
Speaking in parliament that TelOne has carried out a skills assessment exercise for the workers who do not have 5 Ordinary levels.
"In total, there are six hundred and thirty eight (638) employees who do not have 5 O' level qualifications with the majority of them being in technical departments," he said. "While a lot of them have acquired basic technical skills through experience of interacting with the TelOne's old technology such as analogue switches, the new trends in the industry owing to rapid technological changes require upskilling. This upskilling is digital and IP based and thus requires ordinary level qualifications as a bridge to the relevant training through the TelOne Centre for Learning or other institutions."
He said globally and locally, trends are that voice business is on the decline while this market now requires internet and data services.
"These services require a certain level of intellect as opposed to fixed voice services of the past which required extensive manual work (installing wires upon poles and digging). This requires a high level of skills and it was noted that employees in technical department who have not completed five O' levels were struggling to adapt to the new technologies," he said.
"This is not the first time this issue has been noticed. In 2005, the company approached employees without requisite qualifications to start upgrading themselves, starting with the basic ‘O' level qualifications. In 2014 and 2015, the company conducted a skills assessment and this is where the statistics were established."
He said TelOne further benchmarked its human capital against that of other telecommunications operators such as Econet, Liquid and NetOne, who are leading in the market share for voice and broadband services.
Speaking in parliament that TelOne has carried out a skills assessment exercise for the workers who do not have 5 Ordinary levels.
"In total, there are six hundred and thirty eight (638) employees who do not have 5 O' level qualifications with the majority of them being in technical departments," he said. "While a lot of them have acquired basic technical skills through experience of interacting with the TelOne's old technology such as analogue switches, the new trends in the industry owing to rapid technological changes require upskilling. This upskilling is digital and IP based and thus requires ordinary level qualifications as a bridge to the relevant training through the TelOne Centre for Learning or other institutions."
"These services require a certain level of intellect as opposed to fixed voice services of the past which required extensive manual work (installing wires upon poles and digging). This requires a high level of skills and it was noted that employees in technical department who have not completed five O' levels were struggling to adapt to the new technologies," he said.
"This is not the first time this issue has been noticed. In 2005, the company approached employees without requisite qualifications to start upgrading themselves, starting with the basic ‘O' level qualifications. In 2014 and 2015, the company conducted a skills assessment and this is where the statistics were established."
He said TelOne further benchmarked its human capital against that of other telecommunications operators such as Econet, Liquid and NetOne, who are leading in the market share for voice and broadband services.
Source - Byo24News
