R5 million SMART Skills Centre is set to benefit rural communities

The Chemical Industries Education and Training Authority (CHIETA) has opened a new SMART Skills Centre in Modjajiskloof, Limpopo, to bridge the digital skills divide.

According to Stats SA, only 13% of rural households have access to the internet. The widening digital divide between urban and rural communities is a problem CHIETA hopes to solve with its SMART Skills Centres.

“As CHIETA, we are committed to taking SMART Skills centres to rural areas to ensure nobody is left behind in the digital space,” says CHIETA CEO Yershen Pillay

It brings to six the number of Smart Skills Centres opened in rural South Africa by CHIETA since October 2022, with the first in Saldanha Bay, followed by hi-tech centres in six provinces, the Eastern Cape, Kwazulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, North-West and now Modjadjiskloof.

More than 12,000 people from poor and rural communities have benefited from CHIETA’s SMART Skills Centres.

“This is not a computer lab. It’s a state-of-the-art SMART Skills Centre equipped with SMART boardrooms for startups and SMMES, virtual reality machines to train artisans, and accredited training courses paid for by CHIETA. It is the first and only SMART skills centre in Limpopo,” says Pillay.

The CHIETA SMART Skills Centre will provide the surrounding communities with the following five services:

1. 20 private internet training pods for community members to book and use to access digital courses online or apply for a job, take an online job interview, print a CV, etc. 
2. Free data and unlimited access to the internet 
3. 3 Virtual Reality training stations for digital artisan training 
4. A Robotics Hub
5. And a SMART Board for SMMEs and Cooperatives to book and use for planning and trading purposes.

“We live in a digital-first world. And without digital skills, you are unemployable. Many people in Modjadjiskloof and surrounding communities do not have access to the internet and cannot afford data. Some have never used virtual reality technology before. This centre will ensure that the communities of Modjadjiskoolf are not left behind in the fourth Industrial Revolution,” says Pillay.

CHIETA plans to open a SMART Skills Centre every province by March 2025.

The next centre is planned for Gauteng, and CHIETA will collaborate with the PG Group, the country’s largest producer of surface glass products.