The Chemical Industries Education and Training Authority (Chieta) has opened a new Smart Skills Centre in Modjadjiskloof, Limpopo, to bridge the digital skills divide, bringing to six the number of Smart Skills Centres opened in rural South Africa since October 2022.

Chieta plans to have opened a Smart Skills Centre in each of the country's provinces by March 2025, says Chieta CEO Yershen Pillay.

“We are committed to taking Smart Skills Centres to rural areas to ensure nobody is left behind in the digital space,” he adds.

Chieta states that more than 12 000 people from poor and rural communities have already benefited from the Smart Skills Centres established by it.

The Modjadjiskloof Smart Skills Centre is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, including Smart boardrooms for startups and small, medium-sized and microenterprises and virtual reality (VR) machines to train artisans. It also offers accredited training courses paid for by Chieta.

“We live in a digital-first world. Many people in Modjadjiskloof and surrounding communities do not have access to the Internet and cannot afford data. Some have never used VR technology before. This centre will ensure that the communities of Modjadjiskloof are not left behind in the Fourth Industrial Revolution," says Pillay.

The Chieta Smart Skills Centre will provide the surrounding communities with five services, including 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 or print a curriculum vitae, among others.

The centre will also provide free data and unlimited access to the Internet, as well as three VR training stations for digital artisan training.

The centre also has a Robotics Hub, and a Smart boardroom for small businesses and cooperatives to book and use for planning and trading purposes.

The first Chieta Smart Skills Centre in rural South Africa was opened in Saldanha Bay, in the Western Cape, followed by centres in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, North West and now Limpopo.

The next centre is planned for Gauteng, where Chieta says it plans to collaborate with glass product manufacturer PG Group, Pillay says.