Hello. I am Ito, the third term principal of Kamiyama Monosasu Juku.
The school, which started in July, is now in its third month. The 10 students from all over Japan have completed their one-month stay at the Ski Land Hotel, and from August they have each found their own place to live and are starting new lives.
The majority of the third-year students are new to web production, but they have made remarkable progress over the past two months. As the school principal and instructor, I spend every day working closely with the students, and I am greatly inspired by their learning attitude and growth.
What exactly are these students learning?
This time, I would like to introduce you to the curriculum of Kamiyama Monosasu Juku in detail.
What is needed in today's web industry
The Kamiyama Monosasu Juku was started three years ago as part of Tokushima Prefecture's regional development human resource development project. It is an employment-based vocational training course for learning web production, and has developed by changing the curriculum every year.
The first term was specialized training for "coders" focusing on HTML and CSS. The second term last year was specialized training for "web writers" that added writing and photography to HTML/CSS. And this year, the third term is specialized training for "front-end engineers."
The reason for this is the recent changes in the web production industry.
Traditionally, the ability to write HTML/CSS was essential for front-end web production, but as more advanced and complex projects become available, it has become necessary to have not only JavaScript and PHP skills, but also knowledge of the server side and design.
However, there are few engineers who can handle all of these tasks comprehensively, and the need for front-end engineers with general knowledge of the front-end is increasing. Therefore, in the third Monosasu Juku, we have decided to spend about six months acquiring the "skills of a front-end engineer" that are necessary in this day and age.
<Curriculum plan for the next six months>
Specifically, the courses are taught according to the following curriculum schedule:
First, as part of the "base curriculum," over the two months from July to August, you will acquire the basic skills required of a coder (markup engineer), such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
In addition, the "High Class Curriculum" starting in September will broaden the knowledge and skills essential for front-end engineers, including PHP, CMS, server construction, and direction.
At the same time, students will study the "Communication Curriculum." Here, students will absorb basic work knowledge for related jobs such as "designer" and "director/project manager," while also taking part in role-playing exercises and workshops, with the aim of improving their communication skills with related jobs.
Then, in the final month in December, the students will be asked to take part in a comprehensive exercise in which they will utilize all the knowledge and skills they have acquired up to that point.
Developing employees while making the most of their individual aptitudes
Looking at it this way, each of the curriculum contents is not particularly unusual and can be said to be a standard learning content. However, we are proud of the fact that the "breadth of the curriculum" that can be learned in the short period of six months is very dense.
We believe that a front-end engineer should be someone who is well-versed in basic yet in-depth areas such as HTML/CSS, but also has knowledge of design (UI/UX) and back-end engineering; in other words, a web "generalist."
To be honest, I don't aim for the students to master all the techniques and knowledge perfectly. (Of course, if they could do that, they would be invincible engineers...) From my experience, I imagine that they will probably be divided into the following three types, depending on their individual aptitudes.
A: Director type - A type who is good at directing progress management, etc. ・html / css / JS: ★★★
・Design (UI/UX): ★
・PHP/Server: ★★
・Direction: ★★★★
B: Designer type
Specialized in UI/UX design aspects ・html/css/JS: ★★★
・Design (UI/UX): ★★★★
・PHP / Server: ★
・Direction: ★★
C: Geek type - High production skills including back-end html / css / JS: ★★★★
・Design (UI/UX): ★
・PHP/Server: ★★★★
・Direction: ★
In this way, we want to develop each individual so that they can take their first steps as a front-end engineer while utilizing their own strengths.
Looking forward to the day I can head out to the field
As mentioned above, front-end engineers have a very wide range of work, and to be considered a full-fledged professional, it is essential that they gain a fair amount of on-the-job experience (this is true for any job).
At Kamiyama Monosasu School, we teach the knowledge and skills needed to gain high-quality experience in the web industry. However, what is more important is to give students a clear vision of how they will build their careers and become independent after graduating from the school.
As the school principal, I can't wait to see how each student will improve their strengths and make up for their weaknesses. Watching them grow day by day, I suppress my desire to "get them to work in the field as soon as possible!" as I teach them complex skills every morning.