Last year I quit my tenured position at the University of Amsterdam, because I believe that our education system is beyond repair. It’s too slow, too expensive, doesn’t meet any real-world requirements, and most importantly, students don’t learn enough.
I know this, because I have spent most of my life trying to fix it. As a student, a professor, and even as HR manager. After two decades, however, I reached the conclusion that we need a radically new approach.
A form of education that follows the students development rather than the other way around. A platform where learning can happen continuiosly, rather than periodically. This platform is called 'Offcourse'.
At launch, Offcourse will focus on beginning to intermediate developers. Why? Two reasons:
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CS programs around the world have proven to be incapable of educating enough high quality developers to fulfill the market’s demand: both in terms of quantity and quality.
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Developers have already proved to be open to new, non-traditional forms of education. Recent research shows that 63% of all professional developers is self-taught. In the last four years, coding bootcamps have managed to grow exponentially. And the valuation of learning sites in this sector, like 'Lynda' and 'Pluralsight' is steadily growing.