What constitutes a short course and what are the entrance requirements?
Are you wondering what is a short course? A Short course, also known as Short Learning Programmes, are courses that vary in length between three and six months. These programmes can be seen as the groundwork for certificate studies, diploma studies or degree studies, which are more specialised and usually run between 1 and 3 years. Matric College and Skills Academy are two of the excellent colleges that offers short courses that can be completed within months. Matric College— Accredited by FASSET, QCTO, ICB, is another distance learning institution where students can up-skill themselves towards a brighter future.
They might consist of one or more modules that focus on a specific specialisation in a field. For example, if you were to enrol for a short course in the discipline of Policing Studies, you might only focus on crime scene investigation. Other programmes you might focus on are CIMA courses. So, within different fields, you could have many short courses that focus on only one specialisation. Most of these courses will get you ready for a job right away.
Short courses could also be very general courses that are basically an introduction to a specific field, for example, beauty courses. This is great, because rather than enrolling for a one or two year course if you are not sure about it, you could enrol for a general programme in, for example, secretarial studies or general management studies, and then decide whether you want to pursue a career in this field of study.
Short courses often also require you to only have Grade 10 or 11. Because you are not enrolling for a long course like a National Diploma, entrance requirements are much more lenient and based on the degree of difficulty or specialisation of a specific course. For example, a short course in Bookkeeping will not require the same entrance qualifications than a short course in mid-level management.
So, to summarise, a short course:
- Runs for three to six months
- Can deal with only one specialisation within a specific field
- May provide a general overview of specific fields
- May only require you to have Grade 10 or 11 to enrol