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AltSchool Africa was launched on 21st October 2021, by an African tech talent, TalentQL. The program is an attempt to create a tech talent channel following the “launch of Pipeline”, its mentorship and upskilling program for senior developers. Africa’s tech ecosystem has grown, several organizations have sprung up to supply tech talent for startups, especially Andela. After an initial focus on building entry-level talent led by the likes of Andela, the demand for more senior talent meant that for a while, training entry-level engineers will decline drastically. The direct effect of this is that as the senior engineers get more skilled, they are more valuable to startups outside Africa. Nigerian startups along with the rest of Africa without the ability to compete on remuneration with these foreign startups as well as the option of relocating, face a huge struggle to get the right talents for their startups. This is the problem that TalentQL is trying to solve with AltSchool Africa. It is structured that within nine months, participants would receive training in software development after which they will undergo a three-month internship. In the end, they get a diploma certificate. According to a report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The demand for software engineers is expected to grow by 22% between 2020 and 2030, this figure is larger than the 4% average for other careers. It is an open secret in Lagos, Africa’s startup capital city that mid to senior-level engineers are leaving in multitudes to seek better pay and opportunities in companies outside Africa. Andela has been key in placing senior talents from Africa on a global level. Without focusing on beginners and mid-level engineers, it becomes paramount that other startups take up the mantle. AltSchool Africa is one of these startups rising to the challenge of training junior to mid-level engineers. AltSchool was founded by Adewale Yusuf, Akintunde Sultan, and Opeyemi Awoyemi. At first, the idea was to build a physical campus where they and his team would train software engineers to get international opportunities. The founders then met with educational stakeholders at the University of Ife, a neighboring town near Lagos, to pull this off, but the deal never materialized. After that, the team focused on scaling sister-company and Techstars-backed TalentQL, launching products such as Pipeline, which trained mid-level engineers, turning them into senior engineers and placing them in international companies. Upon further research, the founder figured out what needed to be done to make his past idea work: a remote-centric approach. Nigeria has a population of almost 200 million, with 60% under the age of 25. The country’s unemployment rate is at a staggering 34% and continues to leave many university graduates in its trail. Like many Nigerians, Yusuf believes the traditional schooling system is insufficient to get university graduates decent jobs. So what AltSchool does is to provide a solution as an online school with a curriculum to improve/upskill non-technical people with technical and soft skills while partnering with higher institutions to provide diploma certificates.
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One of the reasons AltSchool was launched is for people to have marketable skills so that the massive unemployment problem in Nigeria and Africa can be reduced. Participants in its program would need to have a high school certificate and be computer literate, as specified on its company website. Students who apply to the program, are provided with a home study kit in preparation for an assessment test. Those admitted into the school, meeting a pass mark of 85%, will take a software engineering course with three tracks: frontend engineering, backend engineering, and cloud engineering. It’s a one-year program where students take classes for nine months (three semesters) followed by a three-month internship at local tech companies to gain experience. AltSchool employs an income-sharing agreement (ISA), so when students complete the program and get hired, they’re expected to pay $500, which can be paid in full or installments of $50 over 10 months or $100 over five months. According to the founder, AltSchool might do away with this model for the next batch of students. Instead, the company may use a subscription model, where students pay between $20-$50 monthly for the duration of their program. It also makes provision for those who don’t get admitted into its program. These individuals can access the platform’s first-semester content for free and practice. If they stick to the end of the three-month curriculum, AltSchool will provide avenues for them to complete the entire nine-month program. More than 8,000 people have applied (the application fee is ₦10,000, almost $20) to participate in AltSchool’s software engineering program which starts in April 2022. These applications come from 19 countries (including 14 African countries) and Yusuf said the company received the most entries from Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, and Botswana. AltSchool managed to gather those numbers via word of mouth while garnering some enviable following on social media. Some well-known personalities from tech and music are also sponsoring students through the program, while others, noticing the startup’s promise, are cutting checks. They include Olugbenga Agboola, Flutterwave co-founder and CEO; Shola Akinlade, Paystack co-founder and CEO; Folarin Falana, a Nigerian artist widely known as  Falzthebahdguy; and Akitoye Balogun, a Nigerian artist known as Ajebutter22. Featured Image Source: Nairametrics
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