The Skills Shortage Summit will take its message to the country as the search continues to find innovative solutions to the skills shortage in SA

Key decision-makers and role-players from all sectors of the economy will converge on the CSIR convention centre in Pretoria on 28-29 October for the National Skills Development Summit and its Vision 2020.

The objective is to add a new dimension to the search for innovative solutions to the country’s crippling shortage of skills, according to summit director Dylan James.

“This will not be a static summit -- it will be the start of an ongoing process involving the wider audience outside the summit itself,” he said.

“All the participants will be signatories to a summit outcomes report which will be published by summit organiser Cape Media. The report will be the basis for ongoing online discussion forums to be created by Cape Media and moderated by one of its senior business editors.”

The Vision 2020 theme, said James, would focus the summit on both immediate needs and long-term solutions.

The summit is the second in a series at the CSIR. Said James: “The first went some way to quantify the scale of action required to alleviate the shortage of skills, The October summit will focus squarely on implementation of solutions in the workplace.”

Among the speakers at the summit will be TV sports personality and former Fulham and Bafana goalkeeper Andre Arendse who will provide a case study on his innovative Riski Diski programme for KBC Health and Safety’

The topics to be discussed include:

* How to maximise your return on investment in training

* Skills development: giving your organisation the competitive edge

* Aligning skills development with business strategy

* Apprenticeships into 2020

* Analysis of current skills trends and needs by Stats SA

* How to implement strategic skills development to attract foreign direct investment

* Facilitating access to education, training and career pathing

* Sustainable BBBEE and skills development

The role of organised labour will also be discussed.

Said James: “The American thought leader and futurist Alvin Toffler put the need for ongoing education and training firmly in perspective when he said: ‘The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn’”.