Umm Muhammed Umar

South African job seekers face many challenges, one of them being vital online resources, including recruitment sites. Radio Islam spoke to Hoosen Essop, Operational Manager for Gauteng Regent Business School, regarding this hurdle.

Essop said that Statistics from two days ago show that South Africa’s unemployment rate, among those who are active job seekers, has increased by about 0.5% to a record 36 percent. He added, “There are many people, unfortunately, who for various reasons, including losing hope in trying to get a job, have given up looking for jobs altogether.” So, according to Essop, the official unemployment rate is closer to probably 46 to 48 percent. Essop said, “So just think about that for a minute. For every person that you meet on the street, every second person is potentially unemployed.”

The Regent Business School has developed the ‘Mahala Box’. The name, derived from Zulu, means the ‘free’ box. Essop quipped, “the product itself is not mahala, nothing is for mahala, but the concept behind the Mahala Box is a computer type of device that is located ideally in a central location, which stuffed full of useful information, whether it is videos, eBooks, PDF files.” He added that all of the information packed into the Mahala Box is available and accessible for free on devices. Taking a mall as an example of a central a public space, Essop said that should a few Mahala Boxes be located there anyone that had a device, whether a computer, tablet or a cell phone, could connect the Mahala Box and download or access some of the resources, without having to use any of their own data. He added, however, that ideally, the Mahala Box was an educational tool, and so would be placed in a school, a library or a resource centre.

With regards to people who were job hunting, Essop said that the Mahala Box would help people to upskill themselves, right across any sector, and any industry. He said, “And of course, the challenge that many people would have is the ability to be able to pay for a formal qualification. But even those, even when courses are offered for free on the internet, people have been challenged from accessing those courses.”  Essop added, “YouTube [is taken] for granted and many of us would use YouTube for more than just education. We will use it for entertainment, people who are currently unemployed may not even have data to be able to access to YouTube.” A Mahala Box, located in places where internet access is a challenge, would allow anyone to be able to access those resources for free.

While the Mahala Box is currently in production, among many of the challenges currently being faced is the supply chain involving components. According to Essop, there was a severe shortage in the country. However, the School was currently in the process of procuring and producing 100 of Mahala Boxes that it wants to put up in different communities to proof test and to pilot. A further challenge is that the boxes, being a device and highly costly, unfortunately could be stolen. Essop said, “So we need to find the right people to be able to look after it and to care for it.”