Digital skills academy CodeClan to be relaunched as college course

Scotland’s digital skills academy may be revived as a college-based course less than a year after its innovative predecessor went into liquidation.

The CodeClan name and brand have been acquired by CodeBase, the Scottish government’s contractor for its £42m TechScaler programme to support start-up businesses and entrepreneurs.

Teaching will be delivered by San Francisco-based online provider Owasar.

A spokesman for CodeBase said the pilot scheme would involve training staff from three Scottish colleges – Edinburgh College, Borders College, and West Lothian College.

It is hoped that students will become part of the next phase of the pilot in 2025, he said.

Martin Boyle from CodeBase, said Qwasar would deliver world-class content through the Scottish college network.

He said: “While the pilot is relatively small and regionally-focused for now, we envisage Scotland-wide provision in due course.”

The spokesman added those on the pilot would include college staff including lecturers who teach computing science as well as management and support staff from CodeBase.

West Lothian College principal Jackie Galbraith said it was an “exciting partnership”.

She said: “Scotland’s colleges have an excellent track record in providing a wide range of opportunities, enabling students, regardless of their backgrounds, to develop the digital skills required to start new careers.”

CodeClan called in liquidators in August 2023 after struggling to place students Into employment in the Covid pandemic.

It was launched in 2015 by then Deputy First Minister John Swinney in an attempt tackle a skills gap for software developers and boost Scotland’s tech sector.

It aimed to retrain people from all backgrounds and professions in the fundamentals of software programming and create a community of students, coders and Scotland’s tech companies.

The business provided training from sites in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness – and employed 57 people.

The Scottish government and Scottish Enterprise declined to give CodeClan financial help before the company went into administration in August 2023.

But a government spokesman told BBC Scotland they provided “support students and instructors, enabling those affected by the liquidation of CodeClan to conclude their courses”.

Mark Logan, chief entrepreneurial adviser to the Scottish government, said combining in-person and online training made a national scale programme possible.

“By leveraging these assets in combination, the CodeClan model is also now significantly cheaper and removes the payment burden for employers too, which was a problematic area for the prior CodeClan model,” he said.

TechScaler is the Scottish government’s start-up support programme with seven hubs across Scotland.

It is run by CodeBase, which is also funded by the UK government and has private sector contracts including partnering with Barclays on learning programmes across the UK.