Hello all you amazing Drupal People!
At some of the recent Drupal user group meet-ups the need for and lack of Drupal training was highlighted extensively.
It was added to the agenda of the Drupal Association South Africa meeting of the 20th of May where we discussed the issue a bit and we'd like to start by gathering some community feedback.
Essentially, as DASA we need to act in a way that represents and benefits the whole community, so we'd like to remain fair in the process of determining and providing training, especially where there is a financial component. We need to address two parts of course: Supply and Demand.
Demand
At the Johannesburg Drupal user group meet-up we already heard of two kinds of training that are required:
- Basic introduction to Drupal. Kind of, how to build your first basic website. Yes, we often forget that we will always need this!
- Corporate training where enterprise teams need to be trained on the ins and outs of Drupal. Ideally, at the enterprise' offices in small groups, but formal courses will also be helpful. Informal training will not help here.
Supply
As DASA our resources are limited to voluntary contributions of people's time, so we cannot, at this time, directly help with training. We have some early plans to organize Drupal Clinics (events where Drupal is introduced) at schools, but we need volunteers and help with this, even someone able to give such a lecture always needs help setting up and to assist the people attending.
That then, could potentially be a solution for the basic Drupal introductions. But we need more. To some degree, I think, training is tough to provide because all relevant information is readily available online, in books and video subscription services. But the demand for in-person training remains and the market is ready.
Finding Solutions
To start with we'd like to start compiling a list on both sides of supply and demand.
If you are interested in training or providing training, write to us, reply here, write to me on my contact form or e-mail me or write to info@dasa.org.za. We'll also gather information at the meet-ups.
Please provide your ideal requirements or provision of training, but also secondarily, what would be acceptable to you. If you have budgets or pricing available, please also supply that. Finally, keep in mind that we'll be sharing your contact information with training entities or potential clients.
We'll collate the information and make it available to DASA member companies that want to offer training. It will be much easier for such companies to structure training around readily-available market demand.
Hopefully we can get this great demand addressed for everyone soon!
Kind regards,
Riaan