TAFE teams up with Fortinet to bolster cybersecurity skills

South Metropolitan TAFE is partnering with Fortinet in Australia to offer students hands-on and real-life cybersecurity skills through the Fortinet Security Academy Program, part of the NSE Training Institute and an initiative of Fortinet’s Training Advancement Agenda (TAA). The Fortinet Security Academy curriculum is embedded within the TAFE courses, including cybersecurity and networking courses. This means students graduate with the ability to become certified.

Denis Coldham, Head of Programs IT, South Metropolitan TAFE, said demand for cybersecurity expertise is growing.

“Cybersecurity is a huge growth area with more organisations realising how important it is to be cyber safe. Student numbers in the cybersecurity course have increased each semester. The course itself is challenging, and South Metropolitan graduates compare nationally with the best in the nation. Having the resources of Fortinet’s Security Academy is hugely beneficial for the students in supporting their learning.”

Australian educational institutions are on the cutting edge of addressing the nation’s skills gap when it comes to cybersecurity. South Metropolitan TAFE offers a Certificate III in Information Technology (Cyber Focus) and a Certificate IV and Advanced Diploma in Cyber Security, leveraging specialist cybersecurity facilities at its Murdoch campus. Students can get hands-on with the latest technologies at the Training Cyber Security Operations Centre at the Murdoch campus or they can also attend the Rockingham or Thornlie campuses.

“Before we were a Fortinet Security Academy partner, South Metropolitan TAFE was a Fortinet user. It was important to add the Fortinet content to our cybersecurity courses to avoid students becoming reliant on just one technology platform. We have built our security project centred around a FortiGate firewall,” Coldham said.

Jon McGettigan, Regional Director ANZ and the Pacific Islands, Fortinet, said the future workforce must be cyber-savvy.

“Fortinet has created training materials and resources like the Fortinet Security Academy specifically to help higher education institutions play their part in reducing the cybersecurity skills gap. The future workforce must be cyber-savvy and, to effectively emerge from the economic challenges of the pandemic, organisations must be able to rely on their cyber defences,” he said.

Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Fortinet opened up all its self-paced training courses available to anyone for free, which amounts to more than 350 hours of free training available. The self-paced courses cover topics including cloud security and secure software-defined wide-area networks (SD-WAN), both of which are emerging as indispensable and growing areas.

“Right now, there is a huge opportunity for young people leaving school or older people looking to reskill to pursue a career in cybersecurity. People can take advantage of the Fortinet free training to upskill, reskill and move towards certifications. Courses like those offered at South Metropolitan TAFE will play a huge role in ensuring those people are job-ready when they leave TAFE,” McGettigan said.

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