Work @ TAFE

Over the past few years we haven’t done any specific promotion for our Website Design course here at Wentworth Falls TAFE. I guess during the IT boom of the late nineties/early naughties there wasn’t any need to promote Website Design courses… the demand for web designers/developers was incredible - but that’s not the case now.

There are plenty of people who can “whack a website together” for a small business - and we see examples of this all the time. Much rarer are people who can plan, communicate, design and implement a quality web site, even if it’s only a simple website. But to be honest, small businesses don’t always need a “quality website”, they just want a website with a simple contact form and a bit about the business… and most people have a friend or family member who can put such a website together for them. Larger companies offering Internet Technology / Ecommerce roles are few and far between up here in the Blue Mountains, so my question is:

Who should we be targetting for the Cert IV in Website Design here in the Mountains? Who can benefit most from this qualification?

From the past two years here at TAFE, I reckon I can generalise two or three main roles that the Web Design course caters for at present - maybe you could pick out some more?:

1. those who have a personal project that they would like to implement themselves.
2. those who are wanting to learn Web Design to start their own business.
3. those who are already working in the industry (either in their own business or part of another small business), but would like a qualification.
4. Students who are looking to broaden their options but aren’t really sure of the direction they want to take. (Jude’s additional point)

I’d guess that 70% of our participants over the past 2 years have been those with a personal project. There are still some who are really keen to start their own business, but only two people (that I’ve known) who are already working in the industry and wanting the qualification (or to upgrade/refresh their skills).

What does this tell us? Where should we focus? What type of course should we offer? I’m not certain, but I can think of two directions we could take (or possibly both).

Direction 1
One option might be to publicise a flexible program or traineeship to people in the mountains already working in the industry. There are quite a few small businesses/individuals working designing sites, but it’s obviously a limited number. I think Colin, my Manager, tried this once but came up against some barriers.

Direction 2
The only other opiton I can think of is to publicise/market a flexible Web program not focused on the qualification, but on helping people research, learn, plan, design and implement their ideas for websites/web applications. I only mention this because there seems to be lots of people wanting to do this - it’s not necessarily helping to get people working in the industry and therefore probably not an option unless it was a commercial course?

Any other ideas/thoughts?