HAVE you ever wanted to pursue a career in coding, but you don’t have the necessary maths and science skills? Absa and local training NGO WeThinkCode_(WTC_) have partnered to create career opportunities in coding.
The partnership is aimed at transforming South Africa’s digital skills landscape by focusing on practical ways of reforming youth employability.
The WeThinkCode programme is hoping to rewrite the future of technology students by focusing on candidate selection and matching, a demand-led curriculum, retention and, ultimately, the employment of graduates.
“This collaboration looks beyond potential candidates being strong in maths and science, for example, to see if they show other aptitudes for coding and programme design,” said Nyari Samushonga, chief executive of WeThinkCode_ sa.
Since the launch of the partnership in 2016, the programme has been tailored to become increasingly aligned to the skills needed in the job market. To date, Absa has sponsored 60 of the 300 annual WeThinkCode_ students.
Samushonga said: ”As we’ve grown together, so has the candidate selection model. This now looks at potential students who don’t necessarily have maths and science skills (more obvious to programming), but perhaps have high literacy in pattern recognition, problem solving or analytical skills – all of which can be applied to programming.”
Other attributes sought after in successful candidates are curiosity and their ability to collaborate.
According to Makano Morojele, head of Education Reform and Employability at Absa, having a focused selection process and a practical syllabus yields real results, with a 98% employment rate among WeThinkCode_’s programming graduates, at average annual starting salaries of R240 000.
“Our course has been structured to meet the needs of South Africa’s corporate environment, while bringing the best out of our selected candidates,” Samushonga said.
Morojele said: “It’s time to shift into new ways of thinking, embrace the coalition of the willing and accelerate demand-led skills development”.