The UAE Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) said it has signed an agreement with enterprise application software leader SAP to help boost the employment prospects of its graduates through a cutting-edge IT training programme.

Under the deal, SAP based at Dubai Women’s College (DWC) campus will offer  advanced curricula, technologies and academic research to HCT besides custom-tailored courses and projects for the graduates in IT and Business.

Dr Marshall Drummond, HCT provost and Selim J. Eddé, vice president of Government Relations, SAP Mena signed the agreement aimed at provision of faculty in IT and Business with a raft of new educational tools to help its graduates.

The program also enables faculty to offer hands-on classroom and lab experiences with SAP software to their students.

Further, the program provides access to software licences, instructional workshops and conferences for professors, course materials, and other instructional aides to colleges.
 
HCT said it joined SAP’s globally acclaimed University Alliance Program (UAP) to ramp up its output of graduates capable of succeeding in the UAE thriving technology sector.

The initiative was set to provide HCT with the tools and resources needed to teach students how IT can empower individuals, enable integrated business processes and inspire strategic thinking-vital skills that will figure prominently in the realization of the UAE’s world-class development blueprints.

Nick Nunnington, academic dean of Business and Computer and Information Science at HCT said, 'As we continue to develop our new Bachelor of Science programs we seek opportunities such as this to embed authentic learning in the curriculum; develop projects which align with employers expectations; and give our students the contemporary employability skills required in the UAE.'

'Ultimately I would like to see our Business and CIS students working as consultants to each other to use the resources provided by this Alliance to develop SAP enabled solutions to business problems,” he stated.

Dr Nasser Nassiri, the chairperson of Computer and Information Science Department at DWC said, “As technology is increasingly driving business, the need for DWC Business Information System (BIS) graduates has increased dramatically over the last few years.”

He pointed out that the SAP program enables the BIS students to experience first-hand on how organizations operate, and how integrated systems can make them more efficient, productive, and profitable.

“IT students will also gain a real-life perspective on how business is done in the “real world” and are better prepared for their careers. They also become potential candidates that can be hired immediately by SAP partners in Dubai,” he pointed out.

Dr Shadi Al-khamayseh, the IT faculty at DWC said, 'This agreement will increase our graduates employability, and will empower the businesses to reach their competitive advantage.'-TradeArabia News Service