Friday, September 4, 2009

Singapore Informatics gearing to be an IT-Plus Institute

So far Informatics has produced more than 30,000 graduates globally and the Sri Lankan counterpart contribution is a hefty 5,000 so far. Jayalath said “Per year we train about 2,000 students. He said the major plus point has been that all their graduates are highly employable and reiterated that their potential in obtaining employment has been so great that by the end of the first year itself most students are employed.

The Singapore Informatics Computer Institute (Pvt) Ltd (SICI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Informatics Education Ltd, Singapore which was established in 1994 has been providing yeomen service to the youth of this country, especially those who fail to get university admission.
Singapore Informatics is in 23 countries around the globe and imparts vital Information Technology (IT) education through their 123 centers in these countries.

In continuing their vital educational service SICI is providing education to prepare them for global employment and their vision is to provide education on par with all the universities in the world, so that those who get their qualifications are readily employable anywhere in the world and of course their slot in Sri Lanka is also assured. What is noteworthy here is that those under-graduates in their first year or second year would get employment and once they complete their degree or diploma they are well established in their respective employments.

The present situation in Sri Lanka seems to be that the national universities in the country are unable to adequately provide the much needed skills for the country. Therefore, private educational institutions like the SICI is shouldering a big responsibility in assisting to provide this much needed vocational and tertiary training. In the case of SICI they provide IT skills that are vitally required in our country as well as globally.

Mahen Jayalath, Director, Sri Lanka Territory Corporate Office, SICI said “In fact we have our five core-values and our main objective is to become an IT-Plus Institute. When we say IT-Plus though our core-education is IT we have Business Administration Education too. But of course our core-competence lies in IT.”
They call IT-Plus because of the uniqueness they have achieved wherein they have become an Informatics Virtual Campus with IT enabled learning experience. The students could access their study material on-line. The student can get his or her examination results on-line or though SMS into their mobile telephone.

The second core-value is being truly global which is the educational system in Singapore Informatics targets to make global citizens without restriction of geographical or national boundaries. Students who are involved in learning in Sri Lanka has the option to continue the same course in other countries like China, Malaysia, Singapore or United Kingdom - an opportunity that other such educational institutions would fail to offer.

Mr. Jayalath said that this is because their curricula prepared by academics and distinguished professors drawn from many universities in the world are the same in all these countries. They make sure it is a globally accepted curriculua, so that the students who learn at SICI are globally employable. Even though they have started bestowing diploma education initially, since then they have grown into an institution which now provide degree plus post-graduate education.
At graduate level they impart education to achieve BSc in Computer Science, Computing and Technology Management and also Bachelor of Business Administration. At Master’s level they offer MBA from University of Wales and MSc in Strategic IT from University of Portsmouth UK

So far Informatics has produced more than 30,000 graduates globally and the Sri Lankan counterpart contribution is a hefty 5,000 so far. Jayalath said “Per year we train about 2,000 students. He said the major plus point has been that all their graduates are highly employable and reiterated that their potential in obtaining employment has been so great that by the end of the first year itself most students are employed.

The reason for this employability potential has been that they not only impart their students tertiary education, but also give them soft-skills necessary to obtain jobs and with their Professional Development Centre most of their students are able to obtain their professional skills while doing their degree studies. SICI also provides global employment services.
Once a Sri Lankan obtains his degree from SICI he becomes a member of the Singapore Informatics Global Alumni and then he becomes a part of the 30,000 strong alumni membership. One of the services offered by this Global Alumni is global employment service and the graduate would be able to apply for this service on-line. Also SICI work very closely with big IT Companies and with these links, once students complete their study course, there is no difficulty of obtaining jobs locally.
In addition to their main Centre in Colombo, SICI also has centres in Kandy, Nugegoda, Kolonnawa, Anuradhapura and Ratnapura which are called franchise centres.

What is unique has been that there would not arise any language barrier because, those applicants who fulfill entry qualifications to study in SICI, if they are weak in their English, they will be provided with an intensive English Training before the students embark on their degree courses.

The study course offered by SICI are very popular and they have felt that there is a high potential for their study courses and now they are planning to expand, specially in the rural Sri Lanka to tap this high potential. They are planning to expand their franchise centres and also are planning to start a system of licensing – to offer license to educational institutions in the provinces. This is a practiced in Singapore and in other countries.

Their e-learning system is the largest outside United States. In Sri Lanka, there is a dearth of quality trainers and with e-learning their students can learn directly from university lecturers in those universities for which the students are following courses. For instance if a student is following a degree course from Portsmouth University, the student would be able to directly communicate with the lecturers involved through

e- learning service.
Earlier they were just a training institute for Informatics confined to Colombo but with time the Sri Lankan Institute has registered an immense improvement and expansion and now it has developed into Sri Lanka Territorial Corporate Office (SLTCO) making Sri Lanka as the Informatics Educational Hub for South-East Asia. In fact they have already expanded to Maldives and also countries like India and even Mauritius
SICI now prepares to reap their harvest as on November 2, their annual convocation would be held at the BMICH where 50 students are to receive their degrees.



source by : www.itpro.lk

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