Program

The Program consists of the Bachelor of Information Technology in Mainframe and full-time employment in an IBM mainframe environment.

If you qualify, you will be given advanced standing of eight units for the Bachelor of Information Technology in Mainframe.

The degree will be completed over three years with a combination of summer schools and online learning during the year.

To apply:

You must be an Australian or New Zealand Citizen or Permanent Resident and by the end of the year, you must have completed one of the following:

1. A Diploma or Advanced Diploma in IT from an Australian TAFE;

2. A Level 5 or Level 6 Diploma from a New Zealand Polytechnic;

3. The first year of an IT degree from any Australian or New Zealand university;

4. An IT degree from a recognized foreign university with evidence of your English language skills

Go to the registration page and upload your contact details. We will contact you and ask you to complete your online application.The trainees work in a secure environment and, so the application is detailed. The documents you need including birth certificate, qualifications and passport photo are listed on the first page of the application form.

C72 conducts preliminary interviews with candidates. The employers, who are all IBM mainframe customers, will conduct selection interviews between August and November. Successful candidates start their first summer school on the first Monday of December.

The Traineeship:

While you are completing your degree, you will work full time as a trainee for one of the IBM mainframe customers.

You will receive a trainee salary and be given time off on full pay to attend summer school. Your employer will pay all university fees.

You graduate from the trainee program with a Bachelor of Information Technology in Mainframe from a leading Australian university with no fee debt and three years of valuable work experience. Then you can continue and build your career at the high end of enterprise computing.

Column 72 means Continue

In the days before computer memory and storage devices, programs and data was held on punch cards. In 1928, IBM developed a card with 80 columns and 12 rows to run the electro-mechanical computational machines of the day. This card became the standard when the IBM 360 mainframe was introduced in 1964. The columns from 73 to 80 were for the card sequence number so, if you dropped the stack, they could be sorted back into order. Any non-blank character in column 72 indicated that the next card in the stack was a continuation of the present card.

After graduation, Column 72 trainees will continue their career at the high end of enterprise computing.

Column 72 was first appointed to the IBM Champion list in 2019 and has been appointed again in 2020. This is a significant achievement since there are only 38 IBM Champions worldwide in the IBM Z segment and up to 2,000 applicants. The award recognises the contribution of Column 72 to IBM Z education in Australia and New Zealand and the services to IBM Z customers in the region.

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/champion/index.html

Sponsoring Employers

Candidates must prove they qualify for one year of advanced standing for admission to the Bachelor of Information Technology in Mainframe degree. Most candidates will achieve this through an Australian TAFE College or New Zealand Polytechnic with a Diploma or Advanced Diploma in one of the IT streams.

TAFE is one of Australia’s hidden treasures for IT. The standard of education is high and the content of the courses is job-oriented. The graduates tend to be very practical and many have work experience. TAFE graduates make the transition to university and the complex mainframe environment with relative ease. Moreover, they are highly motivated.

The Sponsoring Employers are IBM Z customer with application development and/or systems management delivered in-house. The Sponsoring Employer will select Trainees from candidates arranged by Column 72 and be prepared to engage them for the three years of the degree. Terms and conditions of employment including salaries are set by the Sponsoring Employer and not Column 72.

The process of engaging Trainees starts with the Sponsoring Employer establishing the contractual relationship with Column 72. This is followed by an analysis of the skills requirement for the job, the provision of Candidate Profiles and the selection process by the Sponsoring Employer.

The Profile consists of relevant documentation including the Column 72 interview results, Right to Work, AFP checks and conditional admission to the degree. The final condition for Admission is the Sponsoring Employer Letter offering the candidate a Traineeship. When the SEL is accepted by the candidate, the Trainee is ready for Summer School.

Apart from the salary and the related benefits, the Sponsoring Employer is responsible for the full cost of the tuition fees. The Sponsoring Employer also pays for transportation and accommodation while the Trainee is at Summer School.

The timing is critical. By November 1, Column 72 must provide the final list of Trainees who will start the Summer School.