The objective of the email survey was to find out about FOSS certification needs in different countries, and to get some assessments on the demand for different types of FOSS skills and certifications. The survey received responses from trainers, universities, training institutions in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Namibia, Zambia, Malawi, and South Africa.

We have grouped skills levels in:

• desktop skills (like Open Office)

• system administration skills (like system, server, network administration)

• particular developer / programming skills (like web development, database, ..)

• additional IT skills (IT security ...)

First set of questions: FOSS training and certification at your institutions

According to the responses, training at the system / network / server administration level is most popular, followed by desktop and web development skills.

Some of the institutions among the respondents want to offer courses to prepare for the LPI certification (sys admin level); some are in (longer) negotiations already with LPI to become training partner. Some institutions offer their own local certificates.

Second set of questions: ICT markets in the respective countries

ICT skills in general and FOSS skills in particular are in demand throughout all skills levels. The LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) comes out as the set of systems that are particularly needed and the respective skills are required accordingly.

FOSS skills needs mostly come up in the private sector, as decisions to migrate to / set up networks and servers based on FOSS increase, mostly because of cost factors.

Third set of questions: Demand for FOSS / ICT training

Again, here the system admin level was mentioned as the one most in demand, followed by the other components of the LAMP stack, as well as desktop skills.