Michigan State University Dubai establishes new ICDL Training and Test Centre

The agreement was signed by Dr. Brendan Mullan, Executive Director of MSU Dubai and Mr. Jamil Ezzo, Director General of ICDL GCC Foundation, during a ceremony held at the MSU Dubai campus.

ICDL and MSU Dubai have also agreed to collaborate in developing the curriculum for a new ICT program, which will be offered in both Arabic and English. The new centre will offer two certifications: the ICDL certificate for participants who successfully complete and pass the test of the seven-module basic ICDL Core program; and the Instructional Technology Certificate which will be announced soon aimed for participants in an eight-module program wherein educators will learn how to integrate ICT and the latest Web technologies such as blogs, podcasts, wikis and Google tools into their curricula to satisfy the requirements of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).

Jamil Ezzo said, "The participation and contributions of the education sector is crucial to ICDL's awareness campaign to promote digital literacy. The establishment of a new accredited centre at Michigan State University Dubai is a key strategic breakthrough that underlines the impact and importance of the ICDL program in complementing the existing IT curriculum of leading academic institutions. We welcome the new partnership with MSU and confident that it will help draw greater attention and support from leading academic institutions towards our efforts to enhance the digital competency of all members of the society."

Commenting on the partnership, Myra Khattab, Program Manager at MSU Dubai, said, "In line with our continuing pursuit of excellence in the classroom, we intend to leverage ICDL's expertise and extensive resources in developing customised digital literacy and training programs for students and educators. Ultimately, the new training centre will serve as a value-added offering that will help boost the development of the students' IT skills and improve their career prospects in the job market."

ICDL is internationally recognised as the global benchmark in developing IT literacy programs and has emerged as the world's largest vendor-neutral end-user computer skills certification with more than 9 million registered candidates from all over the world. Endorsed by education ministries, universities and government organisations in more than 168 countries and available in over 48 languages including Arabic, ICDL seeks to globally promote digital literacy based on unified, world-class standards of competence and integrity.