Company Announcement - The ZA Central Registry today launched its SETA-accredited 'Centre of Excellence' Domain Name System training initiative aimed at giving skills development within the Internet community a welcome shot in the arm.

"South Africa's central registry has amassed a huge DNS skills base over the past 20 years and we felt it was time to collate this knowledge and turn it into a training programme for the benefit of young DNS technicians who will build the next generation of domain name platforms and systems," said Lucky Masilela, CEO of the ZACR. On-site training will be conducted at COZA House in Midrand, Johannesburg, with further workplace-based training taking place at participating domain name registrars in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. The internship will run for a period of 12 months, consisting of practical in class training as well as work place based training.

In line with the National Qualifications Framework the ZACR Centre of Excellence has specifically designed a system administrator learnership, a web developer learnership and a work experience-related learnership. The specific requirements that interns should meet include an IT qualification or equivalent.

The registry operators conducting the workplace training under the auspices of ZACR will have the option to employ the learners who should not exceed the age of 30 years, must be unemployed and who should sign a learnership agreement at the commencement of training. The certificate that learners will receive at the completion of their training is recognised by the Sector Education and Training Authority.

Since its inception in 1995, ZACR built Africa's first central registry from scratch by investing in the skills of the South African and wider African Domain Name System community. Almost 20 years later, ZACR continues to explore innovative ways to boost the DNS skills base, with today's Centre of Excellence launch being the latest example.

The ZACR operates co.za, web.za, org.za, net.za, the recently-launched cTLDs (city Top Level Domains) of .capetown ('dotCapeTown'), .joburg ('dotJoburg') and .durban ('dotDurban), and soon .dotAfrica (.dotAfrica').