Twenty four PDI South African students has completed the Oracle Graduate Leadership Programme that equips them with specialised IT and leadership skills to secure employment in the country’s fast growing ICT industry.
“With the fourth industrial revolution set to be powered by a combination of compute services and cloud technologies, it is imperative that South Africa’s fast growing young population is equipped with the right IT skills to succeed in a digital economy,” says Stefan Diedericks, alliance and channel director at Oracle South Africa. “The Oracle Graduate Leadership Programme was launched in 2014 to address this critical requirement.
“We are working with our extensive Oracle Partner network to provide unemployed South African graduates with an opportunity to acquire specialised IT skills allowing for a future skills pipeline for Oracle and its partner community in South Africa.”
In line with government’s objective to drive skills development and create job opportunities, the Oracle Graduate Leadership Programme focuses on PDI students who have fully or partially completed a university degree. Spread over a year, the programme is based on a blended learning approach, combining classroom training with e-learning and structured on-the-job training and coaching with an Oracle Partner.
Oracle South Africa sponsors the full cost of training for all programme participants.
“Since joining the programme in 2013, we have retained 81% of initial graduates that went through the programme in permanent positions,” says says Omar Poonjani, Psybergate mentoring and HR lead. “We recognise the benefit of capacity building through the intake of Oracle graduates as it enables us to bolster our workforce with fresh talent that is trained, skilled and proficient in the skills required to further develop and grow our business.”
The programme has successfully delivered 63 graduates to date, with 65 students already registered for the 2017 course. Partners for the 2017 programme include Mindtree; Bon Com; Soma Solutions; Psybergate; Spectrumbsol; Britehouse; AdaptIT and Ulwembu lase Kasi.