the higher education institutions of the nation will be reorganized to foster innovation and digitalization throughout the skills development ecosystem. This will entail the establishment of new programs and courses in developing multidisciplinary domains in order to effectively train the employees in sectors like biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence.
Nzimande spoke about the need to bring changes in the curriculum, He said, “Substantial and constant changes to the curricula of our institutions remain critical to allow for students to develop capacities to deal with emergent and unknown challenges of the future brought by the 4IR”. He listed the major subjects that are upgrading daily. He added, “Clearly, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematical (STEM) subjects have a crucial role to play in equipping students in rapidly developing fields such as genomics, data science, Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics and nanomaterials, which are all 4IR concepts.”
Nzimande stated that these new courses will not only focus on technology but would also make some changes in the results of what students are taught, with universities also introducing new entrepreneurship courses to encourage new local companies. He said, “The innovation and digitalisation put a premium on adaptability and in self-directed learning and thinking. Therefore, lifelong learning will be key as the shelf life of any skills development ecosystem has limitations in the present-day environment.”
