Socio-Economic Enterprise Development (SEED) & B-BBEE

Through its (SEED) unit, SENTECH fulfils its corporate social responsibility and B-BBEE obligations by managing and supporting programmes that will:

• Improve SENTECH’s B-BBEE contribution level;
• Increase the number of black and female owned enterprises;
• Contribute to the pipeline of maths and science skills at high schools;
• Improve employee skills;
• Bridge the digital divide; and
• Enhance employment chances.

Maths and Science Programme

SENTECH supports Maths and Science Programme for Grade 10 to 12. SENTECH supports the establishment and operation of a new Maths and Science Centre in an underserviced area to improve its results and learner success rate for university entry. The objectives of the Maths and Science support are to:

• Create a pool of learners who would qualify for university bursaries;
• Improve the Maths and Physical Science symbols of learners on the programme to a minimum D symbol, so as to facilitate their entrance into tertiary educational institutions;
• Increase the number of successful black applicants in the commerce, science-and engineering-related fields at tertiary education level;
• Build capacity among Maths and Science educators in historically disadvantaged schools; and
• To bridge the critical skills shortage in South Africa by increasing the size of the talent pool from which employers can draw graduates who are qualified in Maths, Science, and Technology fields.

School Connectivity Programme

The School Connectivity Programme was established to bridge the digital divide that exists in the previously disadvantaged areas of the country. Since 2011/12 until 2015/16 financial years, SENTECH provided 46 schools across all the Provinces of the country with i-Lab and connectivity which amounted to R25.3 million.

Non-employee Bursaries and Scholarships

SENTECH has collaboration agreements with the Universities of Witwatersrand, Pretoria and Cape Town to provides funds to students at these universities as bursary grants to fund their undergraduate study costs including tuition, books and accommodation. The funding also provides for research projects that the university does as part of its postgraduate programmes.

Students who benefit from these grants also do vacation work at SENTECH to expose them to the working environment. There is an associated work back agreement of one year for each year of study funded. This forms a pipeline young graduates into entry level positions in the company.

Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD)

SENTECH plays a meaningful role in South Africa by impacting the local economy in transformation way through ICT through ESD. The objectives are:

• To grow sustainable Black QSE/EMEs through our procurement opportunities;
• To increase current supplier base through the introduction of new Black start up enterprises;
• Up-skill SENTECH’s current supplier base of Black QSE/EMEs;
• To encourage more designated groups to be entrepreneurs by making information accessible through various initiatives such as information forums and or participation in other stakeholder engagements (Joint Sessions and conferences);
• Provide Financial support;
• Consider using innovation to assist SMMEs;
• Breakdown market barriers for SMMES; and
• Be an Empowering supplier

Skills Development

SENTECH supports its staff to develop and perform in line with industry standards required for their job roles. The company provides workplace training in the form of training courses through both unit standard aligned skills programmes and unaligned short courses where alignment is not available. Much of the training needs have to be provided internally within SENTECH as the technical (Radio, Television and Satellite) courses are unavailable externally in the country and overseas training is costly and often not specific to company needs.

Bursaries

SENTECH also provides bursaries for employees to further their studies or branch into other linked jobs within the company. This scheme provides financial assistance towards part-time studies of tertiary qualifications.

Mindset

Mindset is a non-profit organisation and has entered into a cooperation agreement with SENTECH to provide digital health learning channel. Content is provided via DTH 15k transponder, and the monthly transponder capacity is a total of 5MB which amounts to a total of R673k monthly.