TAFE South Australia to offer cybersecurity certificate next month

TAFE South Australia will start offering a Certificate IV in Cyber Security next month in an effort to address Australia’s skills gap in the sector.

The education provider joins TAFEs in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, as well as the Canberra Institute of Technology and the Box Hill Institute in Victoria to offer the program.

“With the growing interconnectivity of devices in modern society the importance of having confidence in the systems you work and play with is increasingly crucial,” TAFE SA educational manager for IT studies Frank Annese said.

“Having skilled workers in the ICT industry that can monitor, secure and mitigate against any risks is imperative to the industry and TAFE SA is responding to these needs by training the next generation of cyber skilled employees.”

TAFE said the program was the first national skills-based certificate-level cybersecurity qualification, and was developed in close collaboration with a number of industry partners, which include National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank, ANZ Bank, NBN Co, BAE Systems, Telstra, Deloitte, and the Australian Information Security Association.

TAFE cited data from AustCyber and research firm Cybersecurity Ventures, saying Australian employers needed at least 11,000 more cybersecurity workers over the next decade while worldwide demand in 2019 was expected to reach 6 million.