Do students have SAP skills?
Last week I was invited to present to a CIO Forum organised by the SAP Australian User Group. The puprose of the presentation was to discuss possible solutions to the SAP skill shortage in Australia. I discussed the different SAP skill sets which university students acquire. I put forward the idea that SAP TERP10 certification could be used a requirement for graduates seeking employment in the SAP field. Unfortunately none of the CIO’s had heard of TERP10 but I knew this would be the case. I came prepared by providing copies of the sample TERP10 exam and put forward the challenge that they should give the exam to some of their SAP business analysts and see how they go. A link to the exam can be found below.
http://www.sap.com/services/education/certification/schedule/C_TERP10_60.epx
TERP10 is a difficult course for students and only a few universities in the SAP University Alliances Progarm (UAP) have the ability or motivation to offer the training. At Victoria University we conduct the the training and make it available to students who are studying at a UAP university. The pass rate is usually about 70%.
Kenneth Schieffer provided a good blog about TERP10 and its content.
We need more companies to understand about the knowledge students gain through TERP10. So here is the challenge; download the sample exam and see how you go.
Good luck
Was it luck or divine intervention that lead me to your blog this evening? Actually, the message with the link to your blog was tweeted to my SAPEDU Twitter account by SAP's Gavin Heaton. Thanks and appreciation for the shout-out! From a personal perspective, I would like TERP10 to be one of the first courses attended by folks interested in SAP. It provides an outstanding foundation into the key business processes used by most companies using SAP.
Keep up the good work!!
Having worked without outside auditors that last few years, most just right out of college, I would've loved to have had them taken TERP10.
Keep up the challenges - I am very impressed with the work you are doing.
Tammy
At fast, i wanted to say - "No, students can't gain SAP skills just by a degree". But after checking the sample questions in the certification course, i understood - 'hey, we are not making SAP functional consultants here. We are trying to make excellent business process analysts'; Analysts who require analytical skills rather than anything else. Students are the most analytical of all humans in the planet. So, way to go, SAP
Corrections: *At fast -> "At first"
*negihbourhood ->neighborhood
again, wish a spellchecker were included in the message box..
The idea is not to make high skilled consultants. Rather it would be to make people who the the business knowledge and the solution fundamentals. Ready to learn on the field and gain some more expertise.
During their scholarship, they'd also get a first experience through internships.
It is a way to include SAP into the constant learning process and curiosity pertaining to students, and get them ready to achieve great things.
I took the opportunity of having a good relationship with the head of the department, and being an SAP employee, to create a link between the two.
This resulted into a long term partnership, still on-going, based on:
- Access to SAP systems for the students
- Lectures and courses provided by SAP in different areas
- Internships for the students at SAP and a partner
This resulted in driving a high growth of a new path at the University, mainly focusing into acquirising SAP skills in all fields.
This is typically the win-win partnerships that need to be built in order to provide more out-of-school SAP skilled students ready to undertake field jobs that will allow them to put in practice their learnings.
Cheers.
Faycal