Training for a career

IT-IQ was formed by Datatec, taking into its fold a number of technology training companies - first Workgroup Institute, then Network Academy and Syscom.

Recently appointed MD John Ramsey is a well-known figure in the local IT industry, having managed Datatec`s US Robotics division and later Datatec Crew.

"We`ve ended up with a conglomeration of small entrepreneurial run operations," says Ramsey. "We figured we could tie them together and get some benefit out of that consolidation - to be more effective and to have a country-wide infrastructure that would enable us to look at our corporate clients."

The result is that the IT-IQ brand includes a number of companies that offer technology training across three broad areas - applications, systems and development. Ramsey`s ambition is to establish the IT-IQ People Development brand, to make it "a household name, synonymous with successfully trained and skilled IT professionals".

As the IT training business has matured in SA, it has become more complex, with a fair deal of problems plaguing the IT qualification process. Ramsey explains: "With the move by primarily Microsoft to lower the bar of entry to technical training, a lot of quick-start operations have got up to speed and have taken glitter away from some certifications. A year or so ago an MCSE could wonder out and be assured that he/she could choose between two, maybe even three jobs in the R6K to R7K per month salary bracket. Today, they have to line up and take a ticket."

This change has happened very fast, says Ramsey. "It is a challenge to change a training company`s focus from vendor-based certification to what we are now looking at." That new focus for IT-IQ is to become a provider of career qualifications. "In other words," explains Ramsey, "outfitting folk with appropriate, tradable, marketable IT skills, not turning out more and more MCSEs and A-plusses."

This doesn`t mean IT-IQ won`t offer MCSE or A+ training any more. "We will still use that business, but what we`re now adopting is an outcomes-based education (OBE) model. We are looking at what the government has done in terms of its OBE approach with the NQF (National Qualification Forum) and SAQA (South African Qualification Association)."

Ramsey believes the government is on the right track. "One must agree that the education policy has been reshaped in the right direction," he says. "The government is looking at practical skills to get over not only the unemployment problem but the unemployable problem."

While the big merger with the Training Connection, which kept the industry abuzz for a while, fell through, Ramsey reveals the motives behind Datatec`s original intent - to achieve critical mass, consolidate with a large competitor, and get Cisco training, currently exclusive to the Training Connection.

But Ramsey says the Cisco certification programme is on the cards for IT-IQ. "Cisco has always been on the list," he affirms. "Datatec is the biggest supplier of networking equipment in the world. It makes sense not to have gaps like Cisco in our trading offering."

But the biggest shift that lies ahead for IT-IQ is a strategic one, from offering certifications via vendor to providing qualifications via career. "It`s not about training, it`s about development. It`s not about certification, it`s about qualification. It`s not about jobs, it`s about careers," concludes Ramsey.