Coverage
IT training program to begin this month-end
Times of Oman
February 15, 2009
TimesofOman.com
The Government IT Training and Certification program will commence its training schedule in the end of February 2009
MUSCAT - The Government IT Training and Certification program (GITTC), that was formally sealed through a contract between Information Technology Authority (ITA) and Certiport Inc., US, will commence its training schedule in the end of February 2009.
In October 2008, the GITTC contract was signed between Mohammed bin Nasser Al Khusaibi, chairman of ITA and secretary-general at the Ministry of National Economy; and David Saedi, president and CEO of Certiport.
This contract is to train about 93,507 civil employees in cooperation with the Ministry of Civil Services and the Ministry of Education over a period of three years.
GITTC is a project under the National IT Training & Awareness (NITTA) framework, which is a government, nationwide eOman initiative aimed at developing ICT skills and increasing ICT awareness within the government and the community.
The GITT initiative aims at providing ICT training opportunities to the civil service employees in order in enable them to offer electronic services to the public and the businesses.
The project also creates employment opportunities for educated unemployed youth of Oman by enabling them to become certified digital literacy trainers.
Through this agreement, the process of building capacity within the public sector to expedite the process of e-government implementation and create a pool of ICT-skilled civil staff takes momentum.
The project team visiting the three selected areas solicited the cooperation of the directorate generals and the probable trainers of the programs
During the first phase of the training project, over 300 centers have been established in government schools under the Ministry of Education, who are the key stakeholder of this program.
About 7,000 government employees have been assessed for digital literacy training needs in Muscat, Al Batinah and Al Sharqiyah regions of the Sultanate. Their current level of digital literacy has been identified as basic, intermediary or advanced.
This will help select appropriate training to improve their skills to higher levels so that on completion of the training program, they can be certified formally under the internationally-accredited IC³ digital literacy certification.
Certiport Inc.'s Internet and Computing Core Certification is a global standard for digital literacy. It plays a significant role in the global community's program to become digitally connected and help bridge the digital divide.
While most of the training centers are located within government schools, some are located within government offices. From the entire scope of the project, which covers 36, 17 entities will be covered during the first phase of the training.
According to the contract, the company had to acquire 200 trainers for the entire three-year period and currently they have already appointed 43 IT Omani graduates as fulltime staff with the support of the Ministry of Manpower.