South Africans are not being prepared for a new revolution

As a young man growing in the Eastern Cape, one of my favourite radio broadcasts to listen to was Radio Freedom because I was fascinated by the machine gun jingle at the start and end of the broadcast.

From Lusaka (Zambia) or Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) in the evenings or Radio Maputo (Mozambique) at lunchtime, the freedom songs and messages on Radio Freedom inspired one to see the coming revolution, especially when OR Tambo was talking. I didn’t care about the poor reception produced by the short wave frequency as I told myself it was the work of the regime that was jamming the broadcast.

But it’s not that revolution that Radio Freedom preached at the time that I want to talk about here but a new kind of revolution that’s creeping into our society and that the ruling class tends to trivialise – the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

It may not have the sound of an AK-47 rifle, or freedom songs and speeches that inspire people to take a stone or petrol bomb and throw it at the police Casspir, but it is serious business that everybody needs to take seriously. It is a silent revolution affecting the entire universe and impacting every individual.

Those who have long prepared for it are exploiting it to their advantage and reaping the benefits. Many have been caught napping, such as our government, while many have been impacted negatively, such as some employees of Standard Bank, which has announced the closure of 91 branches and retrenchment of some 1,200 employees.

Standard Bank has cited digitalisation as the main reason for laying off staff and its not the only one doing this. More people are going to lose their jobs in future.

Going to the bank now means you are going to talk to a machine rather than a human being. The computer, cellphone and telephone have replaced face-to-face interaction in today’s banking.

It bothers me to note that our government is trivialising this serious issue. Our leaders dither while this digitalisation phenomenon is galloping ahead so very fast. Instead, they use it a way to enrich their vocabulary and to add to the volume of terms and acronyms in state documents.

If our government is serious about the Fourth Industrial Revolution, why don’t the majority of schools have computer teachers and computer laboratories? Why, in those schools that were lucky to be sponsored with computer laboratories by the private sector, are many of those labs are still locked because CAT (Computer Application Technology) is still not regarded as an important subject?

A high school I visited a few years ago in Bakubung near Pilanesberg in the North West had a computer laboratory that was donated to the school. But the classroom remained locked because the teachers did not have the skills to operate the computers. That school is one of many in our townships and villages where children still do not know how to operate a computer.

President Cyril Ramaphosa must put his money where his mouth is, and his government must start installing computers at schools and train teachers to use them to teach the kids. School is where it should start and government must take this matter seriously.

Eric Naki

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