CodeBase relaunches CodeClan across three Scottish colleges – Prolific North

CodeBase is relaunching CodeClan across three Scottish colleges, alongside a Silicon Valley teaching platform.

The pilot with Edinburgh College, Borders College and West Lothian College is set to commence this summer, with programme content delivered by US-based education platform Qwasar.

The move by CodeBase comes less than a year after CodeClan went into liquidation in August 2023, with CodeBase acquiring selected assets from the digital skills academy and enabling around 80 students to complete courses in software development and data analysis last year.

CodeBase said the relaunch is in response to high levels of industry demand for software development and data science expertise, an acute requirement for training to address the digital skills gap, and the potential to accelerate economic impact.

CodeBase, which also runs the Scottish Government’s start-up support programme Techscaler, is actively engaged in discussions with other colleges, the public and corporate sectors, with a view to a Scotland-wide roll-out of CodeClan next year.

Mark Logan, chief entrepreneurial adviser to the Scottish Government, said: “Establishing a route for people to switch careers into technology is vital to meeting the talent needs of Scotland’s tech sector.

“I’m particularly excited about the new CodeClan’s highly scalable delivery model, the three-way partnership between CodeBase, Qwasar and Scotland’s college network makes possible a national scale programme, combining in-person and online training with world-class, constantly refreshed learning materials.

“By leveraging these assets in combination, the CodeClan model is also now significantly cheaper and removes the payment burden for employers too, which was a problematic area for the prior CodeClan model.”

Martin Boyle, vice president of transformation and strategic relationships at CodeBase, added: “We have spent the last few months reassessing the CodeClan model, and with Qwasar in place we have a world-class content provider that is aligned with the latest needs of industry, delivered through the Scottish college network.

“While the pilot is relatively small and regionally-focused for now, we envisage Scotland-wide provision in due course.”

Qwasar Silicon Valley was founded in 2019, Scotland-born Jennifer Robertson among the co-founders.

She said: “Our programmes train to the advanced technical level required by industry and are competency-based, meaning learners build competency in programming step by step.

“Anyone can do it. Yes, it takes effort and there is a lot of coding, but it’s these kinds of courses and hands-on learning pathways that allow anyone to succeed and turn cities and countries into talent powerhouses.”