The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) is now offering a Certified Short Course in software development to those who have lost their jobs or have found it difficult to find employment, both as results of the pandemic.
This is being offered through its Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE), but, despite the name, students do not need to be in Joburg to participate as this is an online course.
The full name of the course is “Professional Software Development – Technical Practices – 1” and students can find its official page here.
This will take place over the course of eight sessions and is billed by the JCSE as an intermediate skill level endeavour. In the announcement it’s stated that the course is made for those who already have a background in software development so, unfortunately, this isn’t something many people can just jump into with no prior experience.
“Feedback from the software industry has shown that graduates require significant upskilling on professional software development techniques before they are able to contribute meaningfully. Most tertiary curricula develop a basic aptitude in programming languages but do not cover additional technical practices required by a professional developer,” reads the description.
“This course aims to fill this gap, thus equipping graduates and others who have learnt about software development in the class room, with software development skills needed in a professional development environment.”
The eight sessions cover many areas such as web architecture, team development, fault finding and more. One session that is particularly important for job seekers is the “teamwork and project management” topic in session five. Learning how to effectively work as a team is always important in every job.
For all of this, the Wits JCSE usually charges students R9 000. Those who meet the criteria can go to the aforementioned main page for the course and click on “key dates & applications”.
From there find the application form and, most importantly, check yes on the section titled “are you unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic?” to waive the tuition fee.
Applicants will also need to provide a description of their software training so far because, as mentioned, this is not intended for newcomers.
