The partnership will combine DDLS’s ICT training for enterprise and business with Open Colleges’ provision of online vocational training to consumers - and leverage DDLS experience and expertise delivering “globally recognised ICT training and certification with Open College’s consumer market reach and expertise delivering online training for a wide range of nationally recognised vocational qualifications”.

Open Colleges CEO, Jose Herrera-Perea, said, “We’ve been seeing considerable and growing demand for ICT skills from our customer base and wanted to partner with a leading ICT training provider to help us meet that demand.

“With 28 years of experience and relationships with the world’s leading ICT vendors, and the largest portfolio of Certified Cybersecurity Training in Australia, DDLS was a natural fit.”

DDLS CEO, Jon Lang, said the two organisations were highly complementary.

“Open Colleges’ market demographic is B2C and ours is B2B. DDLS is the leader in face-to-face/instructor led vendor-certified training, and Open Colleges is regarded as Australia’s leading, private vocational online learning provider," Lang said.

"Through this partnership we’ll be able to combine the best of both worlds to deliver much-needed upskilling to the Australian workforce.

“Through AIICT, we will launch a range of IT Diplomas with Open Colleges, aligned to global IT vendors. We’ll also look at bringing our DDLS vendor-related certifications training to the Open Colleges customer-base through a range of delivery formats.”

Lang said the cybersecurity skills shortage and high salaries were reflected in demand for DDLS’s cybersecurity courses.

“Cybersecurity training is just the first step in our long-term strategic partnership, and it is a great place to start, because there’s a huge need for more cybersecurity training,” Lang concluded.

DDLS says the first joint initiative under the partnership will be online training in cybersecurity and will include three International Standard Organisation (ISO) and American National Standard Institute (ANSI) accredited certifications issued by global provider of vendor-neutral IT certifications CompTIA.