What’s Happening in Learning in South Africa?

I have been in Johannesburg for the past 4 days attending and speaking at the Global Learning Academy conference.  This is a gathering of about 100 learning executives  from nearby countries as well as speakers from Dubai, the United States, Australia, and the UK.

South Africa faces huge talent challenges. Unemployment is around 20% not because there is no work, but because many people lack basic skills. There are not enough skilled workers and the government and organizations are spending heavily on developing needed skills.  The current work is mostly manufacturing and mining, so skills are technical and practical.  This opens a door to e-learning which is widely used, but with poor to mediocre results.

There has been movement to create formal learning processes to build skills and grow leaders. We’ve heard speakers from Accenture as well as from smaller South African organizations. Here is my take on the state of corporate learning.

1. Lots of focus on creating corporate universities or academies. Perceived benefit s in doing so include lower costs, greater consistency, and more influence.
2. Struggles with gaining leadership support and showing  a return.
3. The government in an effort to encourage corporations to hire and develop workers has implemented many rules and requirements that may actually slow down the development process.
4. Change management is a huge issue and lots of effort to implement Kotter’s Leading Change methodology.
5. Significant focus on e-learning but only at the most basic levels. Little use yet of simulations or interactive tools.
6. Lots of interest in social media for learning but very little implementation.
7. Challenges to overcome leadership resistance to new learning methods. Most people still regard classroom learning as the best methods.
8. Training staffs remain fairly large and there are many brick and mortar institutes already in operation or being built.
9. Little focus yet on virtual learning/work but growing fast.
10. Most organizations are focused on skills development as opposed to capability development.
11. Leadership development is very traditional.

Some ideas that I heard discussed that I think have promise:

1. Develop learning communities that teach and support each other. These can be virtual or face-to-face as the situation dictates.
2. Focus on tribal models for sharing, collaborating and learning.
3. Experiment with rapid learning processes and accept the 80/20 rule around development. Give people the base minimum and let them fill in the rest themselves.
4. Develop information portals and on-line networks of advisors/coaches for anyone to tap into.

The long term hope for South Africa, in my opinion is to use their organic, family-oriented, communal society to embrace social media use it to encourage, support and deliver skills training outside of or as an adjunct to the more traditional forms of learning.

What do you think?  Do you have any experience in implementing training into communities with low skills basic skill levels.