The challenge of producing “true data scientists with old money academic depth”, while meeting the immediate, fast-paced demands of industry was the focus of a deep dive into program development at the recent “Power Up with Power BI for Africa Summit.”

Joel Perry, Academic Director at iFundi, detailed the institution’s pedagogical strategy for its Data Science Practitioner programs, highlighting how the partnership with industry experts like Ousadia Consulting ensures both academic rigour and workplace readiness.

The Three-Pillar Approach to Workplace Readiness

iFundi’s strategy is built upon the robust framework of the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) accredited qualifications, which inherently mandates an industry-aligned curriculum.

“The content of our program… has been developed with the contribution of industry,” Perry explained. “It is substantive, it is comprehensive, and it enables people to be ready for work then and there.”

This is achieved through a three-component structure:

1. Knowledge Component: Providing the theoretical foundation, including statistics, data analysis logic, and the fundamentals that inform tool usage.
2. Practical Component: Hands-on application of skills, such as using Power BI and other analytical tools.
3. Workplace Component: This is the most crucial element, requiring students to apply their learning in a real-world environment.

• Mentorship: Students must have workplace mentors to verify their application of skills.
• Evidence of Application: Graduates must provide evidence that they have matured and already added value to their workplaces while studying.

“In our approach, while you are studying you need to apply and you need to give evidence that you’ve been applying it in the workplace environment,” Perry emphasised. This ensures that iFundi graduates do not exit the program seeking “work experience,” but are already experienced practitioners.

Power BI: The Platform and the Pedagogy

The partnership with Ousadia Consulting directly addresses the modern industry demand for competency in specific Business Intelligence (BI) tools. For iFundi, this collaboration focuses on ensuring the ‘Power and Potential of Power BI’ is integrated throughout the training.

The learning is structured to address both the tool and the underlying science:

• Platform Mastery: Ousadia Consulting’s practical expertise in Power BI dashboard design is critical in teaching the hands-on application of the platform, aligning with the “practical component” of the qualification.
• Fundamental Science: Simultaneously, the accredited program provides the essential basics: understanding data analysis, spreadsheets, and statistics. “You know what you’re looking for when you’re looking at data,” Perry noted, ensuring graduates understand the logic behind crucial steps like ‘cleaning data’ and setting up ‘data relationships’ that drive visualisation.

Modular Learning for the Working Professional

Recognising the time constraints of working professionals, iFundi adopts a bite-size and modular learning approach.

“Not everybody has the freedom or the opportunity to take lots of time away from work in order to study,” Perry stated. Programs are structured in “chunks,” allowing individuals to attend sessions over one or two days a month across a period of time. This flexibility enables learners to “get back into the workplace… and to progressively grow with the program,” providing immediate value back to their employers.

For individuals or companies needing a quicker, non-accredited solution, iFundi also offers Digital Skills Programs that provide concentrated, industry-informed training on tools like Power BI over two to three months, ensuring immediate on-the-job competency without the commitment of a long-term qualification.

By marrying the academic rigour of QCTO-accredited curricula with the practical, platform-specific expertise of industry partners, iFundi is developing a generation of data scientists who are both theoretically sound and immediately capable of driving business intelligence.