The lack of short courses in IT programming in Adelaide has prompted an IT and open source enthusiast to seek funding to devise her own PHP course to meet demand.
Last week Robyn Manning, who provides basic computer training for a not for profit organisation called The Hut, put in an application to Linux Australia for a grant to help develop a PHP course, and to fund a 'beta' test run of the course.
Manning is asking for $900 to cover basic costs such as the use of a training room at Aldgate in the Adelaide Hills, and for printing course information.
She said the reasons for developing the course was driven by the people she had come across, largely from her lecturing in Adult Community Education, who had expressed interest in PHP, but outside of TAFE diplomas or university degrees, there were few opportunities to attend IT courses that were not devoted to application packages.
"Some of these students don't have the time or the means to access TAFE or university courses. My courses are practical hands-on, making things work courses, whereas uni courses are mostly theory based," she said.
"To access a PHP course at TAFE you need to qualify for the TAFE prerequisites. To get recognition of previous courses or current knowledge costs hundreds of dollars," she added.
According to a TAFE SA, there are only two short courses in the software programming area; one is 'Designing and programming computer software' at Noarlunga campus, the other is 'Introduction to C Programming' at Regency campus.
Manning was presently writing the course material, which she said will run for 12 weeks, hopefully beginning around Christmas.
She said the course will start as in-class teaching, but hopes to make it available online at a later date.
"The course notes etc. will be released to the Open Source Community as a Training Course in PHP for people who want to add some PHP to their existing HTML skills and for people who want to see what programming is all about."