The academy conducted three levels of SQL training, namely Database Design, Basic SQL as well as Advanced SQL from October 2011 to April 2012. SQL is one of the many courses that the School of Modernisation and Technology in the SARS Academy has to offer and it was introduced to provide a learning opportunity to identified SARS staff members.
Nkidi D. Mohoboko, senior manager of learning and development at SARS Academy says they are extremely proud of their learners who showed a keen willingness to learn. "I have personally spoken to some managers to determine their level of satisfaction, and they assured me that even though it is early days, they can already see a marked improvement in the performance of the learners who attended the training."
GetCertified managing director Arnold Graaff is proud to be selected as a training provider for SARS. "Most public service companies admire SARS for its efficiency, profitability and good governance. The SQL training presented by us was to get the delegates in SARS skilled in the most important skill in the IT industry today, information design and retrieval skills.
"Information is important in today's life, because information enables us to make decisions, at whatever level of life. In your car, in your house, in your daily life a huge amount of information is processed to make decisions, sometimes life-changing decisions," he explained.
"The amount of information required and processed by large organisations like SARS is massive and it therefore needs to be stored in large databases. When we retrieve information, we realise how important the storage of it is. The way we store the information must help us to retrieve it, therefore when teaching people information retrieval with SQL, we also need to teach them how to store it efficiently."
GetCertified believes in obtaining skills by learning the tools, then learning the practical skills on how to use the tools in real-life situations. By doing so, it enables students to get up to the international certification level with confidence.
To get up to the international exam level of SQL, GetCertified has designed a three tier approach and it tests students at each level, the first being Database Design and the second being Beginning SQL. These courses complement each other and show that it is equally important to know how to design a database solution as well as how to efficiently retrieve information from it. The third, the Advanced SQL course, brings students up to the international Microsoft Exam level.
"The feedback received from both learners and managers was that the course was very helpful in transferring the much needed skills on how to move from ordinary spreadsheets to a proper database. Even though it is only been a short while since receiving the training, the learners are already utilising the needed skills back in their workplace," concludes Mohoboko.
