Johannesburg, 11 Feb 2016
LGIT Smart Solutions, the Johannesburg-based training company that won the coveted Microsoft Learning Partner Award last year, is helping graduates gain real-world experience through on-the-job training, ultimately helping them to become employed.
The company has access to funding from a major global IT brand, which allows them to aid in training graduates, to bring them on par with IT international certification. The programme is about connecting companies with graduates.
"One of the things we most love about this programme," says Natascha Pr"ussen, MD of LGIT Smart Solutions, "is the opportunity it creates for employment, which ties in very strongly with the core values of our company. We really have a desire to help people with training, and for them to use that training to impact their lives and the lives of those they support. It's wonderfully rewarding!"
The initiative affords companies who want to be involved in developing skills in South Africa, to take on graduates. Their role is to provide real work experience to an IT graduate over a period of one year, and pay them a minimum stipend of R3 500 per month, which is seen as an internship.
Pr"ussen believes the programme has legs because it connects jobs with grads, and not the other way around, which is often the case with work-integrated learning programmes. As such, LGIT Smart Solutions acts as a go-between for the graduates and jobs, without creating false hope for students and/or inundating companies with many CVs for just a few positions. "An important consideration is we are not inviting graduates to contact us, but rather businesses, who want to be involved in skills development. Our pool of graduates is then given the first opportunity to seek an internship, provided they meet the minimum requirements and are currently unemployed. They need to be South African citizens, under 35 with a minimum of a 2 year IT diploma." LGIT then places the correct graduates with companies.
Another big advantage is that the programme addresses the skills shortage in the IT sector. Therein lies the great irony - there are jobs available, but there is still an unemployment problem, because companies battle to find the correct staff to fill positions. This programme is an effective way to bridge that gap more coherently, states Pr"ussen.
Companies interested in seeking graduates for internship positions can find more information on the following link: http://www.lgit.co.za/files/promos/S2B-flyer-partners.pdf?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ITWeb.
Share