Close Skills Gaps to Prepare Africa’s Workforce for Tomorrow’s Jobs is the Key 

Education is a topic which has endless resources on the internet. It has become a market place where thousands of platforms are proposing their services freely or with a small subscription fee irrespective of a student’s age or location. Today’s working era has become very dynamic and is continuously requesting more knowledge and expertise from people. With the evolution of technology, information can be world wide accessible. Following this line of thought, becoming successful is becoming more and more challenging in a very competitive market where people are trapped in a rat race trying to find their perfect fit.

For most people, success is not something we get from birth, but rather, it is something which is achieved after a learning process. For instance, learning can be done in different ways. However, once one identifies their learning style, an individual can easily situate where he stands and thus maximize his strength and efficiency.

It is of course important to find ways to learn new skills and gain more knowledge. But it is, before that, in today’s time, primordial to find the best successful career path possible first. After conducting a few research, it has been found that their is a large pool of potential prosperous future careers which can be supported by online training.

Information Technology

The source of the well functioning of a company today relies completely on its information technology system department.Before going to other fields of expertise, companies have to strive to stay ahead in this competitive world, thus orienting their choice of training towards e-learning courses which are automated, centrally managed, time and cost effective. By opting for online training, companies can cater for the training of all employees and new hires scattered around the globe with this new “work from home” culture which follows the principle of being inherently cost effective.

Job prospects have been changing for years and today the most demanding field is that of information technology. Among thousands of existing job prospects in the IT field, some of the most demanding expertise on the market are; software engineering, software development, mobile development, web development, algorithms, computer security, networking security, network and computer systems administration, computer programming, graphic designing. Some certifications that can be obtained through online courses or training are for instance PHP certification, Framework certification and MSSD: Web applications, programming and coding courses for languages like Python or JavaScript. As per online statistics, between 2014 and 2024; there will be an average of 27% increase in employment rate in the IT field accompanied by a more than average median salary of six figures. In order to facilitate students, some platforms like Coursera, Udemy, Academic earth, edX, Alison among others have brought forward online courses where people all around the world can benefit from.

Marketing

For a business to be successful in sales, the need for marketing is primordial. While some companies may outsource their marketing department, some rather go towards growing an internal marketing department comprising of marketing officer at different hierarchy levels. While online advertising has brought forward the creation of new career opportunities such as digital marketing officers, marketing automation specialist or even Omni-channel marketing officer, a wide range of online platforms are now proposing online courses and workshops to add value to the experience and expertise of these officers. Different universities such as the university of Illinois or the university of Virginia among others as can be shown in the table annexed, are offering online courses through different platforms such as Coursera or Online-studies. (refer to annexed table to get detailed courses and platforms).

Telecommunication

Every single sector of society is changing and will keep on changing in the years to come which looks to be exciting, where new technologies are being developed everyday and set to continue onwards. In today’s ever-connected world, the need for data transfer demands faster protocols. With the need of high speed data access to power up data-hungry needs, the 5G promising stepping stone will give birth to the possibility of perpetual internet connection to perfectly serve its purpose. Online platforms as shown in annexed table, the university of California, the institution of telecommunication training special or even Cisco among others have proposed courses such as Cisco networking basics, 5G essentials or internet of things: communication technologies. (refer to annexed table to get detailed courses and platforms).

Commercial

To ensure maximum efficiency in an organizational commercial departments, management processes and strategies have to be fully grasped. The ultimate goal of a commercial workforce is the maximization of profits. The development of a perfect commercial force, commercial operations coordination and implementation commercial techniques should be developed in order to reach or even surpass targets. In this global era, companies can now benefit from online trainings proposed by well known universities such as Yale university or even the university of Rochester through the help of online platforms for courses such a technology commercialization or introduction to negotiation to help employees perfectibility. (refer to annexed table to get detailed courses and platforms).

Legal

Every company has to have a legal department or even an our-sourced legal workforce. Companies are under the obligation to respect all the laws imposed in a country in order to be allowed to operate smoothly. For this to be done successfully, legal expertise employees should be constantly proposed trainings, workshop or courses to always be up to date with all the legislation currently enforced. As many companies are becoming internationally oriented, mostly European companies for instances, the University of Lund or the University of Illinois came forward with the online course “European business law” or “corporate and commercial Law” respectively, to help ease this transition for those legal employees. (refer to annexed table to get detailed courses and platforms).

Accounting and Finance

We all use money and manage our personal finances. However, it becomes more complex when coming up to organizations, where it encompasses the process of acquiring, managing and allocating required funds in an effective and efficient manner. To simplify this process,it can be explained as organizing proper accounting and bookkeeping practices to accurately track cash flows. With accounting and finance expertise being crucial for any business funding strategy, online trainings have become a great way of bringing this career field to the next level. Starting from entry level courses such as financial accounting fundamentals proposed by the university of Virginia, the Hong Kong University of science and technology came forward with a more complex course such as “Fintech: Finance industry transformation and regulations. All this is made possible by the various online platforms making a wide range of courses available.(refer to annexed table to get detailed courses and platforms).

General and Human Resource Management

When business education comes to our mind, it primordially refers to flawless general management and human resource management practices. Juggling between key decision making and well functioning and coordinating day to day operations, the process of setting up business goals, planning achievement and witnessing successful execution is the ultimate target of management sectors. Management also mean inspiring, coaching as well as mentoring. Thus with continuously educating once workforce, an organisation can forcast an excellence oriented workforce. For instance, the university of Stanford, with it’s proposed course; “ Organizational Analysis” or the university of Michigan with the online course “ Leading people and teams or even the university of Minnesota proposing the online course; “ Recruiting, Hiring and on-boarding employees” among others as can be seen in the annexed table, the are no excuse for employees to remain at a stagnant level of expertise. (refer to annexed table to get detailed courses and platforms).

Back Office

Back office being a portion of a company comprising of all administrative work together with support personnel, it is by far a negligible sector. All companies functions for operations are provided by the back office. It is a department which is complementary to the front office operations and should inevitable have a solid foundation. Be it managing the payroll department, the HR department, the IT department, the account service department or even data entry and administration, the back office should always target productivity and cost efficiency. For this to be possible, the back office department should constantly look for new technique to bring up new strategies for a better and improved processes every day. Making use of online courses, proposed by the Udemy platform or Ethan Hathaway; “ Basic Secretarial skills & Receptionist training” or “ Back office management training courses” respectively, companies are more and more empowered by these online platforms to enforce a continuous improvement culture.(refer to annexed table to get detailed courses and platforms).

The technological world is the most dynamic existing field for this century.Companies are therefore increasingly having the need to train existing employees as well as new hires. Making use of E-learning tactics, helps all other departments as well. Be it telecommunication, marketing, commercial, accounting, fiance, management, legal, human resources or back office, they all rely on the perfect performance and continuous improvement of the technological world to make online education possible, thus aiming continuous improvement and increasing probabilities of getting better jobs. As quoted by the Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, online education will flourish for rich countries but revolutionize that of African countries.

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