The Vice President of the republic, John Dramani Mahama, has said that Ghana has a huge potential to become an ICT hub in the sub-region if only the citizenry could take advantage of opportunities offered by Information Technology giant, NIIT, to acquire some special skills in ICT.
Commissioning the Tamale Centre of NIIT which is the seventh branch nationwide, Mr. Mahama, said most countries in the world today are developing very faster because they were making good use of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) skills they have acquired to develop other sectors of their economy citing an African country like Zambia which has incorporated ICT training at all levels of her educational system.
The Vice President thus encouraged the Ghanaian youth to take the study of ICT very seriously and use the skills acquired appropriately to benefit themselves and the nation as a whole.
He also appealed to NIIT Ghana to consider opening two more campuses, one in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region and another in Wa in the Upper West Region respectively, to enable the youth of those areas benefit from quality ICT training.
Mr. John Mahama further impressed upon the authourities of NIIT Ghana to consider reducing their fees in order to make it affordable for many people to enroll and acquire knowledge in ICT.
The Minister for Communications, Haruna Iddrisu, in a brief remark observed that, Tamale and for that matter the Northern Region, has a high rate of unemployed youth, adding “if there is anything that can solve this problem, one of it is ICT training”.
He urged the youth of the area to grab the opportunities that would be offered by NIIT to learn some skills in ICT in order to better their lot in future.
Mr. Haruna Iddrisu who is also Member of Parliament for Tamale South Constituency, announced that government plans to set up state-of-the-art ICT centres in each region in Ghana this year saying “five major regions would be begun with and later the remaining five also benefiting by the end of the year”.
NIIT is a leading Global Talent Development Corporation, focused on building skilled manpower pool for global industry requirements. The company which was set up in 1981, to help the nascent Information Technology (IT) industry overcome its human resource challenges, had now grown to be amongst world's leading talent development companies offering learning solutions to individuals, Enterprises and Institutions across 40 countries.
According to the Managing Director of NIIT Ghana, Kapil Gupta, for over 10 years, NIIT had been at the forefront of ICT training in Ghana and had been the preferred choice of young IT aspirants and professionals alike. Adding that, the institution has trained more than 40,000 ICT experts in Ghana and more than 5 million worldwide.
Mr. Gupta attributed this success to the strong commitment of NIIT management and stafff, and the progressive attitude of people and their strong conviction and belief in the highest standard of ICT education that NIIT has come to represent.
The MD mentioned a number of prestigious awards that NIIT had won over the years which include best ICT School in Ghana in 2010, best ICT School in Ashanti Region since 2004 and 1st ICT training centre to be in the top ten of the prestigious Ghana Club 100 award.
Currently, NIIT has been chosen by the Ministry of Communication to develop course curriculum for Business Process Outsourcing under the ongoing World Bank sponsored eGhana project, he added.
Meanwhile, the Tamale Campus of NIIT has been equipped with ultramodern facility with over 70 computers with LCD monitors that can train nearly 650 students in various software, networking and multimedia courses for the IT and ITES industry.
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