Huawei to equip 20,000 civil servants with 4IR skills
Seated L-R: Huawei Kenya Deputy CEO Fiona Pan, ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru, award-winning civil servant graduate Violyne Nguti, Huawei Kenya CEO Will Meng and Huawei Kenya Chief Media Relations Officer Dalmar Abdi when they awarded civil servants digital training certificates at Serena Hotel, Nairobi on March 25, 2022.
The government is stepping up efforts in the reskilling and upskilling of civil servants in a new deal signed Friday.
In the pact, Huawei Kenya Engineering Training Academy will be an authorised training centre for frontier tech skills for the next three years.
In the agreement unveiled between Cabinet Secretary for ICT and Youth Affairs Joe Mucheru and Huawei Kenya Chief Executive Officer Will Meng, 20,000 officers, professionals and students will be equipped with Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) skills through the academy.
“This new programme, the largest of its kind in our history, is akin to the software development part of ICT capacity building and is expected to take three years. In this period, we will advance the skill sets of government officers through the Huawei Academy,” said Mr Mucheru.
He added that the final training certification will be recognised by the Ministry of Public Service, Gender, Senior Citizens Affairs and Special Programs in a formal skills database.
Digital skills
Explaining that the initiative lies in line with the government’s commitment to increase the number of services that Kenyans can access online, Mr Mucheru noted that it is grounded on findings from the ICT Authority’s ‘Talent Cultivation for Kenya’s Digital Economy’ White Paper released in November 2021 which reported that 55 per cent of jobs in Kenya by 2030 will require digital skills.
The paper projects that the country’s digital economy will generate 9.24 per cent of the total GDP by 2025, with its key recommendations being to scale-up public-private sector initiatives and ICT certification programmes to meet the expected demand.
“Combining the capabilities of the private sector with those of the public sector has proven to be a successful approach to helping unlock the country’s potential and boost growth,” said Huawei Kenya Chief Executive Officer Will Meng.
He noted that providing training to public officers in the use of technology is essential in enforcing many improvements that have substantial impact.
Capacity building
At the time of the announcement, 900 civil servants from across various government agencies also graduated from a pilot of the capacity building programme.
Twelve of them were awarded for their outstanding performance. The training was categorised into two cohorts covering technical and non-technical training.
The technical training comprised knowledge on the latest cutting-edge technologies including Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Big Data, Networks Security, Digital Economy, E-Government and Smart Cities while the non-technical training focused on ICT transformation, cybersecurity and information security.
“As we embark on this new collaboration between the Ministry of ICT and Huawei on tech talent development we will address the existing gaps within the industry and academia,” stated ICT Principal Secretary Jerome Ochieng’.
