IIT started with its IT Education, Training, and Educational Multimedia businesses in Namibia in 1998. The opening inaugurated by the Right Honourable Hage Geingob, prime minister of Namibia. Over the past few years, IIT has emerged as a diversified IT services organisation and has become a trusted educational partner to the Namibian business community, government and public. Our services include IT Education and Training as our core business but also Application Software Development, Networking/Web Based solutions and IT consulting. We currently operate in Windhoek and it is envisaged to incorporate the rural areas of Namibia via additional centres and distance learning.
Namibia, like most countries, has a great shortage of professional IT skills. In terms of the human resource base, Namibia has an established, but relatively small, cadre of highly skilled IT professionals.
The ways of the past have left large gaps in the current and future needs of the country for skilled employees – irrespective of levels of qualifications and vocations. IIT supports the vision of the recent paradigm shift towards an education services model that is designed to uplift and develop the skills Namibia needs to compete in the global arena, and develop her people to international standards of IT literacy.
In Namibia IIT is not only an educational organisation. We pride ourselves in being an IT development organisation and Knowledge Corporation working to develop the much-needed IT skills in all fields of business. Since we have established ourselves in the Republic of Namibia we have trained the staff of several governmental institutions as well as several well-known private enterprises. In addition we have trained many private, disadvantaged individuals who have, after receiving training, found relative employment easily. These students constitute 40% of our annual student intake.
IIT also conducted a Top Management Imperative Workshop (TMI) for the entire top management of the Government of Namibia in October 1999. This included the Prime Minister, all the Ministers and Permanent Secretaries. The TMI covered e-Governance and the use of IT as a catalyst in streamlining Government operations and was a great success. Getting top management to understand the importance and relevance of IT has lead to the upliftment of the individuals within these organisations thereby making them more productive.
IIT completed Training Needs Analysis exercises for the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Namibia Wildlife Resorts, and Road Contractors Company to name but a few. IIT has proven that we are fully committed to developing IT in Namibia and will do so in the future as well. Our commitment is also reflected in our attitude towards IT development in the Namibian youth. IIT has been an active participant of the SchoolNet project and also serves on the board of SchoolNet as director. Through this project we strive with great success to get all Namibian schools connected to the Internet free of charge. This project is currently supported by SIDA, a Swedish Development organisation. Attached please find more information about the SchoolNet project in the Appendixes. IIT also made a presentation on IT development of human resources in Namibia at the NICI conference hosted by the Minister of Information and Broadcasting. Here we outlined the shortcomings the Namibian workforce faces as well as addressed possible solutions to these problems. In pursuing our belief of creating IT awareness in the Namibian youth, we have been visiting schools across Namibia annually to inform the students of the opportunities that the IT industry holds for them. We have seen that the knowledge of students today is very limited when it comes to the IT industry and we felt that it was important for the youth of Namibia to be made aware of the rapid growth in this industry. It not only better equips them to make an educated decision on their future but it also prepares them for what is rapidly becoming an information-based economy. |
