Monday Dec 16, 2024
Monday Dec 16, 2024
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The University of Moratuwa, on Tuesday launched the online program ‘Trainee - Full Stack Developer’ an innovative education initiative to create a new generation of IT professionals who are in high demand.
Described as the first and only free online software engineering course the ‘Trainee – Full Stack Developer’ is being championed as a Corporate Social Responsibility project in collaboration among the academic staff of the University of Moratuwa, DP Education of the Dhammika and Priscilla Foundation and IT industry professionals.
This as well as several other ground breaking initiatives were announced at a ceremony organised by the Alumni Association of the University of Moratuwa and attended by Secretary to the Ministry of Education Prof. Kapila Perera, Secretary to the Ministry of Technology Jayantha De Silva, Sri Lanka Information Technology Institute Chairman Oshada Senanayake, University of Moratuwa Vice-Chancellor Prof. Niranjan Gunawardena, Chairman of the Computer Society of Sri Lanka Damith Hettihewa and the DP Education co-founder and business leader Dhammika Perera.
Pix by Ruwan Walpola
At present, over 10,000 undergraduates and 3,500 postgraduate students are studying at the six faculties of the University of Moratuwa. Over 90% of students who graduate from the University are employed within three months of completing their degrees. Graduates of the University of Moratuwa are internationally recognised and are highly sought after by employers, especially in the fields of IT and Engineering.
‘Trainee-Full Stack Developer’ is a free program accessible through the open.uom.lk website. It provides the foundational knowledge needed for software development. The program contains six modules, and on the successful completion of these modules the students will be awarded certificates issued by the Center for Open and Distance Learning, the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of the Engineering Faculty and the Department of Information Technology of the Faculty of Information Technology of the University of Moratuwa.
The launch also included a panel discussion that was held on the theme ‘inclusive online education’ which was moderated by the Moratuwa University former Vice-Chancellor Prof. Malik Ranasinghe, with introductions made by the Centre for Open and Distance Learning (CODL) of the University of Moratuwa Director Vishaka Nanayakkara. The panel discussion was observed by a large local and foreign audience who participated via Zoom.
DP Education, the largest online school in Sri Lanka was established in 2019 as an initiative of philanthropist Dhammika Perera who had the vision of providing accessible online education to students from preschool to grade 13. The DP education system provides resources which are contributed by highly qualified teachers from across the country in Sinhala, Tamil, and English. It was then extended to children between ages 2-7 as DP Kids.
DP Education reaches over one million learners across Sri Lanka via their DP Education Mobile App and the use of social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Telegram and Instagram. DP Foundation’s other initiatives in free education are DP Coding School and DP IELTS.
DP Coding School aims to provide opportunities for kids and teens to develop their problem-solving and critical thinking skills by learning coding at www.dpcode.lk. Coding is giving instructions to computers through programming languages and helps develop student’s maths, logical problem solving, as well as their school and academic performance. IT literacy will soon become an essential skill and an essential requirement for many future jobs. According to code.org, 67% of all new STEM jobs will involve computing.
DP IELTS’s objective is to provide excellent coaching to all Sri Lankan students and employees who will be taking the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) which is required to study abroad and for foreign job opportunities. DP IELTS was created to produce an effective ICT workforce fluent in English. For the first time, all IELTS learners will be able to test their knowledge with Artificial Intelligence-assisted IELTS mock-up testing via the DP IELTS website.
As a next step DP Education collaborated with the University of Moratuwa to create the free online program ‘Trainee - Full Stack Developer’ with the intention of popularising online education and aims to help graduates and school leavers enter the job market by providing them with practical skills and knowledge.
This is DP Education’s first stepping stone into online higher education. This program provides learning opportunities to those interested in learning IT, by providing training which will enable them to enter the IT sector which has a large demand for skilled employees and also to create entrepreneurs who would revolutionise Sri Lanka’s ICT industry.
The ‘Trainee - Full Stack Developer’ program is endorsed by the Computer Society of Sri Lanka and is conducted by the Centre for Open and Distance Learning (CODL) of the University of Moratuwa. This course is recommended for GCE O/L and GCE A/L students and any IT enthusiast in the country.
“We believe that this initiative by the University of Moratuwa in collaboration with DP Education for the widespread development of the human resources in Sri Lankan will be an example for others to emulate,” a spokesman for the DP Foundation said.
