South Africa’s static and underinvested education and training systems need to be reformed to keep pace with the new needs of the ever-evolving digital economy.

The current educational system is “largely inadequate” to cater for the significant shifts taking place in the business models of all sectors and the increase in the pace of job extinction and creation, including new forms of jobs and the skills churn within existing jobs, as technology and globalisation take hold.

“Some studies suggest that 65% of children entering primary school today will have jobs that do not yet exist and for which their education will fail to prepare them, exacerbating skills shortages and unemployment in the future workforce,” says Communications Deputy Minister Pinky Kekana.

Speaking at the Digital Transformation Congress last week, she said that, on average, a third of the skills required to perform current job functions would be new by 2020.

She suggested that questions around the key features of a future-ready education system, the key adaptation strategies required for managing the transition to a new world of work and the key features of a digital economy should be answered.

“While some estimates have put the risk of automation as high as half of the current jobs, other research forecasts indicate a risk at a considerably lower value of 9% of today’s occupations,” she points out.

“The more conservative estimate takes into account specific job tasks within occupations that, even when not automatable, will go through significant change.”

Poorly developed adult training and skilling systems in most economies will also delay the speed of adjustment to the new digital context for the currently active workforce worldwide.

In addition, she said, outdated but prevailing cultural norms and institutional inertia continued to create roadblocks, particularly when it came to gender.

“Despite rising levels of education, women and people with disabilities continue to be underrepresented in the paid workforce, especially in high- potential sectors and high-status jobs.”

Women have less than two-thirds of the economic opportunity than men, and the rate of progress is stalling.

Kekana pointed out that, for South Africa and the rest of Africa to fully transform, the digital explosion phase should be harnessed with the intention of improving social relations.

Amid the Fourth Industrial Revolution, technology needed to be embraced “more fervently” for South Africa to realise its full potential, increase its economic growth, reduce inequality exponentially and radically improve service delivery.

“Government is fully alive to the efficiencies that arise from the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” she said, urging companies to prepare their current and future workforce for the digital economy by investing in digital literacy and information and communication technology skills.”

It is estimated that the global digital economy accounts for more than 5% of the $4-trillion gross domestic product of the G20 countries, while, in South Africa, the digital economy could account for 2.5%.