Further education sector and employers help to meet IT needs
7 June 2007
Employment and Learning Minister, Sir Reg Empey, today congratulated the first graduates from the Software Professional Course.
This course was launched by the Association of Northern Ireland Colleges on behalf of the Further Education sector in September 2006 in direct response to the needs of the Northern Ireland IT sector and was delivered by Northern Ireland’s three Centres of Excellence in Software Engineering: Belfast Institute; North Down and Ards Institute and the North West Institute. The course is fully funded by the Department for Employment and Learning’s Bridge to Employment Programme.
It enables graduates from disciplines other than IT to gain the knowledge and skills required to launch careers as software developers. The most attractive element of the course is the active participation of locally based software companies such as Kainos, Citigroup and ICS Computing.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony, the Minister said:I have been greatly impressed by the Further Education sector’s ability to quickly meet the demands of Northern Ireland’s growing ICT industry and I warmly congratulate all of our graduates here today. The active involvement of employers has ensured that the colleges’ response is directly meeting business needs and that graduates from the course can be effective in their new employment from day one.
The course is strongly supported by local employers and Momentum, the ICT industry trade association.
NOTES TO EDITORS:
1. Details on the Software Professional course can be found at http://www.itpa-ni.org
2. The Software Professional Course is wholly funded by the Department for Employment and Learning’s Bridge to Employment programme, a pre-employment training programme which was launched in May 1997. The programme aims to provide customised training courses to equip unemployed people with the skills necessary to compete for new employment opportunities on an equal basis with others and to assist employers expanding their workforce in the recruitment of suitably skilled unemployed people.
3. The Graduation Ceremony took place at the Northern Ireland Science Park in Belfast.
4. Media queries to the Department for Employment and Learning Press Office on 028 9025 7872.