New customised bilingual ICT program to be developed for university in Dubai

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

ICDL GCC Foundation 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 training centre will offer two certificates: the ICDL certificate for participants who successfully complete and pass the test of the seven-module basic ICDL program; and the Instructional Technology Certificate for participants in an eight-module program wherein educators will learn how to integrate ICT and the latest Web 2.0 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 in strengthening ICDL's campaign to promote IT literacy. The establishment of a new training centre at Michigan State University Dubai is a key strategic breakthrough that underlines that impact and importance of the ICDL program in complementing the existing IT curriculum of leading academic institutions. We believe that this new partnership will help draw greater attention and support from leading academic institutions towards our efforts to enhance the IT 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 IT 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 4.5m registered candidates from all over the world. Endorsed by education ministries, universities and government organisations in more than 168 countries and available in over 40 languages including Arabic, ICDL seeks to globally promote digital literacy based on unified, world-class standards of competence and integrity.