Ratio Magazine :: The Inside Track to East Africa’s Economies - Kenya: Next GSM Academy in Germany Again After Delays with Kenyan Partners

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Kenya: Next GSM Academy in Germany Again After Delays with Kenyan Partners

Saturday, 14 March 2009

German TOP Business AG offer a intense, three-part training for mobile operator technical staff that addresses the skills shortages in an intensely competitive sector. After delays with their local partner in Nairobi, they will hold another GSM bootcamp in Nuernberg, Germany. By Andrea Bohnstedt.
TOP Business AG, a German company that trains mobile operator staff, had planned to partner with the Kenya College of Communications Technology (KCCT) in a joint venture to bring their training programme to Kenya. The rationale behind this was clear: rather than impose the costs not just of the training, but also of international travel and accommodation on the local mobile operators, TOP would be able to offer their courses at far lower rates if they sent a trainer to Kenya Kenya: German Telecoms Trainer to Address Skills Shortage in Kenya’s Mobile Industry .However, the elevation of the KCCT to the Multimedia University College of Kenya and the appointment of a new management board has led to further delays in the inception of the joint venture. Kenya’s increasingly competitive mobile market, where newcomers Orange Telkom and Econet/Essar’s Yu battle to establish themselves next to dominant Safaricom and the Africa/Middle East telecoms group Zain, has also created intense competition for qualified technical staff. TOP have responded to this opportunity by holding another bootcamp, the GSM Academy 2009, in Germany. Since its inception two years ago, the GSM Academy has now been certified by Germany’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The GSM Academy is divided into three parts. The first section is a web based training taking place prior to the trip to Germany and is intended to ensure that all participants start out with the same minimum level of knowledge. The second segment is the eight weeks of training in Germany, divided into 15 days devoted to the technical background on GSM, GPRS and UMTS and their evolution, and 25 days of hands-on instruction on Nortel’s GSM training equipment. After this, training participants are doing a four-week apprenticeship in a GSM network operator like Vodafone, T-mobile, O2 and E-Plus throughout the country. The trainees are integrated into existing teams for equipment installation, commissioning, local and remote fault management, and can so immediately translate the newly acquired knowledge into practical experiences. The GSM Academy’s final evaluation will no longer be done as an in-house test, but will now be held by the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and successful candidates’ certificates attest to this.

Although marketing is targeted at mobile operators, Bernhard Kuhn, the Vice President Telecommunication Networks Training & Consulting of TOP Business AG, points out that their offer is also an interesting investment for individual: "Our concept is career enabling rather than just providing technical support". He reasons that telecoms engineers or technicians can markedly improve their career prospects, especially given the continued boom of mobile networks using the GSM standard across the continent. TOP’s more than 15 years of experience in GSM network infrastructure training including outsourcing contracts with various suppliers like Nokia Siemens Networks and Nortel ensure that course contents are up to date and relevant to the industry.

Despite the delays in kicking off the training in Kenya, TOP remain optimistic about the opportunities in Africa, and have recently become members of the Delegation of German Industry and Commerce in South Africa to support their expansion into the continent.

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