Gauteng government spends millions to train interns in AI, only to leave them unemployed – DA
The opposition says a great investment in IT skills seems to have resulted in little return.
Artificial intelligence and robotics will impact most occupations in the coming years, according to a new study, but the overall impact on employment is likely to be “muted”. GETTY/AFP/File/JUSTIN SULLIVAN
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng said in a statement on Sunday that it was “shocked” to learn that the department of e-Government had spent millions of rands on training 45 interns, but most of them ended up not being employed.
“While offering internships is a step in the right direction it is unacceptable that the department – after promising permanent employment – only retained 11,” said legislature member Adriana Randall.
By doing this they were not seeing a return on their investment and should not have made promises that they could not follow through on, she added.
“These interns were employed as part of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics training programme.”
The programme was run by the department along with Ntsumi Telecommunications, Liaport Africa and IBA Global Training.
The department also spent R2.8 million to fly the interns to Germany to learn about AI.
“As part of the agreement after completing the year-long internship would be the offer of permanent employment, but this did not happen.
“Some of the interns left their existing jobs to join the programme because an expectation was created that they would be offered permanent employment, only to find out later that this was not the case.”
The interns that were trained were now sitting at home with no income, she said.
The DA planned to table questions in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature to ascertain exactly how much money was spent on the training of interns between 2016 and 2018, what measures were being put in place to ensure the retention of interns and if the interns were supplied with a certificate of completion once the training had been completed.
“We will also be investigating whether it would be possible to take action against officials in the department for improper conduct in the handling of the internship programme.”
(Edited by Charles Cilliers)
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