Rabindra Pokharel

Kathmandu:

The traditional industry based society is rapidly moving towards a knowledge-based society and, undoubtedly, it’s the development in the field of information technology that has provided the impetus for this change. To keep up with the cutthroat competition prevalent simultaneously in today’s professional and academic environs, one must be prepared to accept that IT education is inevitable in equipping oneself make decisions and work in the modern world. IT education is not only about being acquainted with different concepts and ideas of the latest of technology, but also learning their smart applications and being able to reap the advantages of the technological developments of the 21st century.

Information Technology sector has witnessed massive developments in the past few decades. As a result of global awareness, even in Nepal, the boom in the field of Information Technology sector in the past few years has been unthinkable. The concept of outsourcing jobs from the developing and underdeveloped nations has made it all the more popular. In fact, most of the major advancements of the21st century are largely attributed to Information Technology. Keeping abreast with this trend, the younger generation is becoming more and more disposed to undergo IT education.

Why is IT a popular choice?

The most encouraging factor is obviously millions of employment opportunities that IT sector has created worldwide. With the developing countries failing to create jobs of their own and relying mostly on jobs outsourced from abroad, it’s becoming a popular choice among the younger generation. It’s also the availability of plentiful options, which an aspirant IT student can choose from depending on one’s aptitude and interest. However, it’s also the applicability of IT education, which is now indispensable in almost every field. “ IT education is an indispensable part of 21st century life, one cannot do without it”, says Sujit Acharya, MD, New Horizon Computer learning centres.

There are over 1,50,000 different courses available for a student to choose from in the field of Information Technology. Suyogya Man Tuladhar, Managing Director of Pentasys says, “ Of course, there are innumerable options available and you must be smart enough to figure what’s your requirement”. Moreover, it’s also an inevitable fact that with changes in technologies every now and then, one has to continually make up-gradation with the latest changes.

Where to undertake IT education?

There are a number of IT colleges that one can opt for if one’s interested to acquire an academic degree in the field. However, academic certificate alone doesn’t promise everything, unless one is capable enough to apply his education to practical purposes. Herein is realised the significant role of computer institutes. Computer institutes helps in producing professionals with required expertise for a particular job.

What are the courses offered?

There are a wide variety of courses offered in these computer institutes. However, the most aggressively delivered courses in most of the institutes are MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer), MCSD (Microsoft Certified System Developer), and MCDBA (Data Base Administrator) to name a few. In addition to this, apart from conventional software and hardware courses, some of the institutes have also introduced advanced integrated animation courses. However, the choice of the courses largely depends on the aptitude of the students and a basic eligibility criterion set before getting enrolled for a course. Depending on the nature of courses and their time durations computer courses are widely divided into three categories:

A. Short term courses: Short-term courses are specially designed to produce semi skilled professionals and the course duration varies from a few weeks to a maximum of one month.

B. Medium term courses: These courses are designed to produce skilled professionals and the course duration varies from a month to three months.

C. Long term courses: these courses are designed to produce highly skilled professionals and may go for a maximum period of one and a half years.

Sujit Acharya, GM, New Horizons, asserts, “It’s the smartest choice to undertake IT education, thinking about the prospects it promises.” And it’s a fact that IT sector is the largest employment provider at present.

Most prominent computer institutes in Kathmandu have taken one step further to provide their students with job placements. In fact, some of the institutes have already begun recruiting their students for medical transcription, Billing and Coding, XML conversions (Conversion from HTML toXML) and are even planning to venture into international call centres which could create thousands and thousands of employment opportunities for aspiring students.

Suyogya Man Tuladhar, Managing Director, Pentasys Technologies Pvt. Ltd ventured into this field some 3 years ago. Now Pentasys is one of the major employers in the outsourcing business. Tuladhar says, “We are second to nobody and we’re going to make sure that Information Technology has a promising future in Nepal.”