Systems administrators working at research facilities in Africa and Europe gathered at SANBI last week to look into ways to address the global skills shortage in the sector.
Such is the demand for their skill sets that systems administrators, those responsible for looking after companies’ and organisations’ computing infrastructure, are pretty much snapped up by the private sector as soon as they step out of their graduation halls, leaving public research institutions around the globe – who can’t match corporate pay checks – with an ongoing headache.
One solution to this problem being adopted by the South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI) is to train and upskill new and existing systems administrators already in the research system.
Now, with funding from the World Bank through the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), they are looking at how best to do so.
In the middle of August, systems administrators working in the public research sector in five African and three European countries, and USCDC (virtual), gathered at SANBI’s offices at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) to look at what kind of training is required.
Professor Alan Christoffels
“The meeting is actually part of phase one of the project,” explains Professor Alan Christoffels, SANBI director and advisor to the Africa CDC.
“You first have to understand what is needed and what content is already there.”
That’s easier said than done, however. The contexts within which systems administrators work in Africa and Europe can be vastly different, for one.
This was one of the issues that SANBI began to explore with systems administrators at their weeklong meeting in Cape Town. Training is scheduled to begin early in 2025.
The risk remains that newly trained systems administrators would heed the siren call of corporate pay checks as soon as they’re upskilled. Or they may even relocate from laboratories in Africa to facilities in Europe, say, or from a small research centre in Europe to a larger one in the same country.
It is a reality that the public research sector has to live with, acknowledges Peter van Hesuden, SANBI’s systems administrator who has moved into a research portfolio.
“What we’re hoping will happen is that systems administrators will pass on what they learn to others so that there is greater capacity within the system itself,” he notes.
Such is the demand for their skill sets that systems administrators, those responsible for looking after companies’ and organisations’ computing infrastructure, are pretty much snapped up by the private sector as soon as they step out of their graduation halls, leaving public research institutions around the globe – who can’t match corporate pay checks – with an ongoing headache.
One solution to this problem being adopted by the South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI) is to train and upskill new and existing systems administrators already in the research system.
Now, with funding from the World Bank through the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), they are looking at how best to do so.
In the middle of August, systems administrators working in the public research sector in five African and three European countries, and USCDC (virtual), gathered at SANBI’s offices at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) to look at what kind of training is required.
Professor Alan Christoffels“You first have to understand what is needed and what content is already there.”
That’s easier said than done, however. The contexts within which systems administrators work in Africa and Europe can be vastly different, for one.
This was one of the issues that SANBI began to explore with systems administrators at their weeklong meeting in Cape Town. Training is scheduled to begin early in 2025.
The risk remains that newly trained systems administrators would heed the siren call of corporate pay checks as soon as they’re upskilled. Or they may even relocate from laboratories in Africa to facilities in Europe, say, or from a small research centre in Europe to a larger one in the same country.
It is a reality that the public research sector has to live with, acknowledges Peter van Hesuden, SANBI’s systems administrator who has moved into a research portfolio.
“What we’re hoping will happen is that systems administrators will pass on what they learn to others so that there is greater capacity within the system itself,” he notes.
