The UP Information Technology Training Center (ITTC) updated this year its full-time Certificate in IT curriculum.

The revision in ITTC’s curriculum covers both full-time and short courses. “These revisions aim to provide an integrated approach for IT practitioners to receive professional IT training,” said ITTC Director Jaime Caro. “It is part of the larger agenda of ITTC to help address the gap between demand and supply of qualified IT professionals by providing more opportunities for IT training,” he added.

Under the revised ITTC curriculum, new full-time students can either attend the fast track or the regular course. “The fast track is the original one-year, full-time course offered by UPITTC,” Leah Figueroa, training team leader said. “This means that students under the fast track must be able to complete the whole Certificate in IT course in just one year, while students of the regular course may complete it in one and half years,” Figueroa explained.

The introduction of the regular course is in response to students who have difficulty coping with the quick pace of the fast track course. It also aims to provide an alternative to students with no background in IT.

“All incoming UPITTC students are already capable of becoming qualified IT professionals. Except that some may have circumstances that affect their being able to cope with the swift pace of studying under the fast track,” Prof. Lemuel Brana, Marketing and Business Development Head explained. “We want these students to also have the chance to finish their certificate course,” he added.

The addition of the regular course to the milieu of IT course offerings will put ITTC a step closer to realizing its vision of reducing the local and foreign demand gap for more high quality, high level IT professionals.

The changes in the curriculum were endorsed and approved by an Advisory Board composed of academe and IT industry practitioners. The Advisory Board periodically reviews subjects under the fulltime course to ensure that the subjects being taught are updated, relevant and responsive to the needs and projections of the IT industry.

The revision of the curriculum is in keeping with the philosophy of kaizen (Japanese word which means continuous improvement) that the training center has adopted in order to be more responsive in effectively carrying out its mandate to provide high level and practical IT training that matches the needs of the industry.

Short Course Certificate Programs
In addition to introducing a regular fulltime course, the ITTC also integrated and streamlined its short course offerings into 10 new certificate programs.

The revised short courses will enable working professionals to earn their certificates by completing a certain number of required modules. Each certificate program is composed of at least five core subjects, that when taken together and successively, will make the participants highly qualified in a particular IT field.

In addition to upgrading the skills of employed IT professionals, the short course certificate programs will accelerate the shift in the level of the IT skills of Filipinos from “users to developers,” increase the supply of IT professionals and deepen the market niche of skilled Filipinos in the global economy.

The UPITTC short course certificate programs are: Certificate in Java Tech-nologies; Certificate in Web Design and Development; Certificate in Database Technologies; Certificate in Application Development Using .NET Framework; Certificate in Microcontroller Design and Application; Certificate in Game Design and Development; Certificate in Network Administration; Certificate in Linux System Administration; Certificate in MS Windows Server Administration; and International Computer Driving License.

Core subjects under each certificate program are modular and can be completed in five consecutive days or weekends. ITTC offers these subjects at convenient schedules, usually weekends, and based on participants’ availability or client demand.

“Under the revised course outlines, a student can take modules on, say network administration, separately and on his own time. After completing the core subjects, they can then be awarded a certificate in Network Administration. This is over and above the certificates that they receive after completing each module,” Figuroa explained.

For more information on UP ITTC’s fulltime and short courses, log on to http://ittc.up.edu.ph.