Skills2Learn has invested R6 million into establishing an e-learning company, responding to the tremendous need for skills development in SA.
Together with its US parent, Skills2Learn is a South African company specialising in information technology-intensive educational courseware, delivered to the learner in a flexible variety of electronic formats.
Commenting on the group's decision to invest in SA, Frank Keery, the chairman of the board, says: "There is a huge market potential here for training. Unfortunately, the market has not evolved the way it should, given the massive amount of skills development that is necessary here.
"Companies whose employees do not have skills that are competitive worldwide will have difficulty playing in the First World markets. Over the next decade we anticipate that a large proportion of the need for upskilling will be addressed by corporate SA. Skills development has to be embodied in organisations."
The R6 million investment went primarily into infrastructure, such as personnel, systems, premises, travel and securing 10-year licence exclusivity in Africa for the products the company represents.
Skills2Learn has developed a South African first HIV/AIDS e-learning programme that deals not only with awareness and education, but promotes behaviour modification as a means to preventing contracting the disease.
Explaining the reason for the development of the HIV/AIDS training programme, Keery says: "If a company has any degree of social responsibility it must see what it can do to assist the country in which it does business. As an e-learning provider, we decided there was something we could do in the field of AIDS training, which also had the potential to be commercially successful.
"We talked to people to find out what initiatives they were undertaking, and found that there was a hole in the market. While there is a lot of material dealing with AIDS awareness, there was no training that dealt with behaviour modification. Our product has an impact on the problem overall."
The company also supplies a vast range of IT and soft skills e-learning courses. The media-rich lessons in its "Everything" courseware series can be deployed across a LAN/WAN or intranet, or on an individual computer. Its Internet portal products have been specifically designed so that they can be run across low bandwidth, and are offered on an ASP basis.
Skills2Learn also provides printed manuals, designed for standalone use or in conjunction with the e-learning courseware, to create a blended learning environment.
Lastly, the offering includes "Seminar on a Disk". This caters for people who only need to learn a portion of any of the courses provided by Skills2Learn. It is usually a companion to the printed manuals, but can also be used in a standalone e-learning format, as a tool to prepare the student for courseware to be presented in a classroom, or as a refresher post online or classroom training.
Keery says: "The courses cater for the training of the least computer-literate to advanced certification training. The range allows any company, regardless of its hardware infrastructure and the level of computer sophistication among its employees, to put together a training programme to cater for all its people."
The line of support tools includes:
* Assessments: This identifies the gap between the skills required by the company and the knowledge a particular employee has, matching the correct curriculum to the learner's needs.
* Learning Content Management System (LCMS): Establishes individual learner programmes, creates learner groups and generates course test reports.
* Learning Management System (LMS): Provides all the functions of the LCMS, plus additional management and information features.
* Enterprise Intelligence System (EIS): A complete HR management system, which includes features such as benchmarking, automatic skills development and equity reporting, job competency profiling, mentoring and salary surveying.
* e-Learning Authoring Tool: For use by companies that want to take their own proprietary material and convert it into e-learning modules. It is simple to learn and does not require the skills of a power user.
* Help Desk: Search engine-driven, this facility effectively eliminates the need for humans to respond to user problems or queries. It is available in Zulu, Northern Sotho, English, French, German and Dutch.
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Skills2Learn, a provider of world-class e-learning courseware and services, serves its worldwide customers' e-learning systems requirements completely, consistently and affordably, leading its staff and suppliers in achieving this goal. It is dedicated to increasing the quality, reliability, performance and value of its e-learning products and services on an ongoing basis.
Skills2Learn strives to positively impact the global communities where it conducts business, in particular assisting the disadvantaged in their quest to compete in the digital revolution. It brings best-of-breed learning tools to emerging markets at a price and value that makes mass access possible.
Together with US-based In2ition, Skills2Learn specialises in IT-intensive educational courseware, as well as soft skills training, delivered in a variety of electronic formats. It also provides learning management systems to assist in tracking and managing employee progress through the training process.
Skills2Learn has recently released a South African first HIV/AIDS e-learning program, in an interactive story format, concentrating on behavioural modification as well as education.
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