The Best Short Courses in South Africa

by Staff Reporter

Short courses are a great option if you want to upskill within your current industry or if you want to explore various fields before committing to pursuing a new career. You could think of it as trying on a new pair of shoes to see if they fit before buying them.

Continuous learning is imperative if you want to become and remain successful in the workplace. Short courses allow you to continue to learn new skills and develop different ways of thinking. It is also a great way to keep your brain stimulated, as we can get trapped in our daily duties and forget to look at the bigger picture of our lives.

Taking a short course can help you develop your network. Through your classes you may meet new friends and contacts. These contacts may help develop your career later in life.

If you are considering doing a short course, we have created a list of the best short courses in South Africa to help. If you are deciding what short course to do, and where to do it, this list should help.

Table of Contents

Advanced Project Management Short Course

Project management is a vital skill for a variety of activities in life from work projects, to party planning, party planning and more. These all require structuring skills, leadership and high-level thinking.

What do project managers do? Simply put, a project manager is someone who plans, organises and carries out projects while keeping in mind things like budgets and deadlines. They lead teams, set project goals, communicate with everyone involved and make sure the project gets finished successfully. They often have a varied skillset, and an online project management course can help you develop this skill set.

The fact that project managers do almost anything and everything has led to an increase in project managers and employees with project management skills. A project management short course can help boost your career in any industry.

Learnfast provides one of the best project management short courses. This short five-day online course is internationally accepted, assists in furthering your career and improving the quality of your work. Helping you provide a higher quality of work for yourself and your employers. 

Digital Marketing Short Course

Digital marketers are in-demand professionals, and because of this, businesses reward high-performing employees by remunerating sufficiently. Embarking on a digital marketing journey could help you increase your chance of a good salary. While upskilling can help you increase this likelihood even further. 

Digital marketing lets you reach a wider audience, scale your business further, and generate more revenue. Setting up business online, running ad campaigns, developing content strategies are a few tasks a digital marketing expert does to provide effective results.

The Digital School of Marketing (DSM) provides some of the best short courses to help you further your knowledge in digital marketing. A good place to start would be the Basic Digital Marketing Course. This online course will empower you to grow your current marketing knowledge, advance your career and improve your presence on digital channels.

Graphic Design Short Course

If you enjoy creative work, becoming a graphic designer is one of the best options you could explore as a career. Graphic design is an exciting, professional field where you can put your passion for creating to use every day.  

Using images, text, and colour, graphic designers can transform statistical data into visual graphics and make complex ideas more accessible. You might already be in the design industry and want to develop your skills or you may be wanting to kickstart a career in graphic design.

You should check out the graphic design short online course that the University of Cape Town (UCT) is currently offering. This short online course broken into self-paced manageable modules, designed to assist you throughout your learning process through diverse learning activities.

university of cape town

Copywriting Short Course

The growing importance of doing business online has meant that the importance of website copy has grown exponentially. This means that copywriters that can write great online copy are in high demand.

Companies require help in crafting home pages, landing pages, product pages, subscription pages, sales letters to customers, blogs, articles for e-zines and e-newsletters. Due to this demand for copywriters is set to keep growing.

Copywriting is a great career option but also helps teach you key life skills. These skills include psychology, communication and influence.

SA Writers College provides potentially the best copywriting short course in South Africa. This online short course can be completed at your own pace within one year.

The structure of the course has been designed in a specific order ensuring each topic builds logically on to the next to help develop your skills in the processes of conceptual thinking. The content also includes examples of award-winning advertising to illustrate techniques – and offer inspiration on lateral creative solutions.

SEO Short Course

Due to the rapid rise of digital technologies, new online and optimisation strategies are in high demand. This is where SEO comes in. You may have heard about search engine optimisation (SEO) from countless people telling you that you need basic SEO skills. The reason you have, is because it has a huge impact on any online business. 

SEO is often seen as something quite technical and only to be done by experts. While there are many layers of SEO, from basic to advanced, everyone can learn the basics.

Getsmarter has a great Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) course short course that has been designed for both existing digital marketing professionals and those entering the field. Professionals within digital marketing will get the opportunity to refine and advance their skill set with the latest SEO practices, tools, and ethics through this course.

If you do commit to this, you will, quite honestly, see fantastic results.

Programming Short Course

Computer programming is essential today because so much of our world is automated. Humans need to be able to control the interaction between people and machines. Programming is similar to software development in the sense that programmers make use of codes to create software. 

However, programming is a more general term. Programming involves all forms of software development, both mobile and website development. It includes web design, development and management.

If you want to start your programming career you should check out the Intro to Web short course from Code Space. This short course provides an introductory look at the basics of web development. The course is the starting point to many of their longer specifically designed courses. The course is centred around a practical project of building a digital resumé using HTML and CSS.

Brand Management Short Course

No company can survive without their name and brand being known to the public. Brand management is crucial to set a company apart from its competitors. It gives an organisation some control of the brand’s perception, but it also presents an opportunity to take the company to the next level. If managed correctly, a company’s brand should be it’s greatest asset.

The South African College of Business provides the SACOB SC Brand Management Course. This is a practical and comprehensive course focusing on branding concepts and the principles of brand management.

The South African College of Business demonstrates the importance of an appropriate brand strategy for a business that explains how to build a long-lasting brand. This course is invaluable to those seeking knowledge of the current terminology and concepts every brand and business needs to become sustainable.

Customer Relationship Building Short Course

Customer relationship building is the art of engaging with customers to improve the customer experience. Customer relationship building involves providing answers to short-term roadblocks and proactively creating long-term solutions geared towards customer success.

Businesses that build good customer relationships gain an insight into the behaviour of their customers and modify their business operations to ensure that customers are served in the best way possible. 

Wits Enterprise provides an excellent short course on Customer Relationship Building that teaches you how to use tools to measure customer loyalty, manage complaints and improve customer relations. By the end of this course, you will understand the process of turning leads into customers and how to retain them.

Computer Literacy Short Course

In today’s digital age, having computer skills is essential no matter what career you pursue. Whether you’re new to computers or looking to refresh your knowledge, the computer literacy course offered by Oxbridge Academy is perfect for you.

This short course covers everything from basic computer operations to using software like Microsoft Office efficiently. You’ll learn practical skills that are useful in both your personal and professional life. By the end of the course, you’ll feel confident navigating the digital world, creating documents, managing spreadsheets, and much more.

Oxbridge Academy’s flexible online learning platform allows you to study at your own pace, making it easy to fit learning around your schedule. Join thousands of students who have already benefited from this course and take your computer skills to the next level!

Health and Safety Officer Short Course

A health and safety officer or advisor is responsible for using their skills and knowledge to reduce accidents and injuries and prevent health problems in the workplace. It is a vital role, as your actions could potentially save the lives of your co-workers or prevent them from suffering severe injuries.

Health and safety professionals are particularly sought after in industries such as construction and manufacturing. Workers in these sectors have a higher risk of injury due to the practical nature of the work and the dangerous machinery they work with.

Absolute Health Services specialized in providing a suite of quality, professional and accredited health and safety training courses

These courses assist employers, their employees, contractors, and the general public in better understanding and implementing the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Act 85 and its compliance requirements. 

Find Your Career and Fund a Short Course

Once you have decided what short course you would like to study, if you need help with funding, we are here to help. Fundi offers study loan to students that cover a range of costs, including tuition fees, textbooks, study devices and more!

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