ARE WE READY FOR FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION?

Sir,

Thank you for allowing me space to voice my concerns regarding the much talked about era, the 4th Industrial Revolution. I won’t dwell much on what this revolution is about and I would like to reassure emaSwati that we have already reached the time where everyone says ‘this is the 4th Industrial Revolution’. To explain, this is the time where everyone’s life is controlled or affected by technology. But my biggest worry is how far the country is in its readiness for such a revolution?

Let me make an example which might seem silly; one day I was perusing through the classified section looking for vacancies that might meet my requirements and fortunately for me, I did get one, which simply needed me. As someone living in a country where service delivery is not slow, but almost not there altogether, I was involuntarily compelled to miss such an opportunity because it needed one to send his application via an email. As we all know that for many of us we usually see a copy of a newspaper after three or more days after its publication because we live in far-flung areas and there are no internet cafes in our tinkhundla centres, where I might have sourced that kind of assistance, if they were better put into good use.

Worry

Moreover, my biggest worry centres around the issue of educators. Is government aware that about 80 per cent of teachers do not have adequate knowledge to meet today’s requirements? I believe that teachers are the ones who should always be given first priority when it comes to issues of development, as they play a pivotal role when it comes to transferring and imparting knowledge to the younger generation. So how do you expect them to share such paramount information even if they themselves are ignorant thereof!

If you can take an instance of the English syllabus, both at junior and senior levels, it does incorporate technology, but the relevant stakeholders are afraid to ask pupils to write emails in their final examinations. That is why every year, children will always be examined on how to write a friendly letter, which is now outdated, except for certain stores. Why are they afraid? It’s because they know that teachers can’t competently teach them these tasks except with the aid of Information Technology (IT) teachers. Lastly, I’d like to appeal to government to quickly come up with tangible possible solutions in an attempt to curb this ‘disease’. We need a well-detailed roadmap on how it plans to reskill these educators. Remember, Helen Hayes once said; “If you rest, you rust.”

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