ICT Industry Skills Council steps up initiatives

In yet another significant step forward, the ICT Industry Skills Council (ICTISC) is planning to introduce significant impetus to the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Skills Development in the country.

In the modern knowledge intensive economy human resources are the most critical factor behind the success of corporations. Information and communication technology (ICT) sector is one of the most knowledge intensive branches of the economy. The overall importance of ICT has also greatly increased, as it is nowadays widely integrated into almost all functions of the whole economy, business and society. As a result, it is highly important to foresee the skills needed from the ICT professionals in the future.

The new skills requested by the ICT firms, besides the certain educational degrees, are often qualities of personal nature. Factors like attitudes, the world-view, personal communication skills etc. are more important than before when firms are recruiting new staff. The new needs are reflecting the changes taking place inside the ICT industry, but also in the relationship between the ICT and other sectors. The mastery of ICT and its integration into thinking and business model has become necessity in sectors like banking. ICT has entered into the core of these businesses. The mandate of the ICT Industry Skills Council is to create national strategies and operational plans to create standardised skills requirements for various job roles in the industry.

“ICT training institutions in Sri Lanka specially the vocational education sector will have to go through significant changes to improve the quality of the training such as cognitive and analytical skill development to cater the industry demand. Provided the dynamic and highly volatile nature of the ICT industry and rapid advances in technological development, there is an urgent requirement for continuous interaction between the ICT employers and ICT trainers.

“ICT Industry Skills Council has already proposed several initiatives to the government to enhance the vocational education system by building soft skills, encouraging entrepreneurship, and promoting networking opportunities between TVET sector and the ICT industry, promoting NVQ qualifications in the ICT industry, creating alternative pathways to start ICT careers, facilitating highest number of internship opportunities, etc. ICTISC believes that, those initiatives will help to create a workforce with specialised ICT competencies, to cater the growing expectations of the ICT Industry,” said ICT Industry Skills Council Chairman Chinthaka Wijewickrama.

Like its economy, the Sri Lankan ICT scenario is developing. In order to bridge this gap between ICT skills expectation and local demand, the ICT Industry Skills Council was tasked with the responsibility of developing highly skilled people in the industry. ICT Skills Council has established collaboration and believes that the national competency development is a collaborative effort by multiple stakeholders. ICTISC link up industry, industry bodies, government bodies, government training arms, private training arms, academia and the work force under defined set of national goals.