April 2013 NUI Galway Offers Free Places for Software Development Programme

NUI Galway, in collaboration with a number of software industry partners, is offering a limited number of places on its innovative Higher Diploma in Software Design and Development Programme for free. Due to the strategic importance of developing skills in this area, support has been arranged by the Higher Education Authority meaning that successful applicants will not have to pay any course fees, other than a student levy of just €224.

In conjunction with 12 Industry partners in the ICT sector, NUI Galway have designed a twelve-month conversion programme which enables graduates to reskill for employment in the software development area. The overall goal of this one-year postgraduate conversion programme, is to strategically increase the supply of skilled graduates to meet the needs of Ireland’s high growth software industry. It will provide graduates with a fast-track, focused computing qualification, and presents them with an opportunity to obtain valuable industry work experience.

The new Diploma builds on the existing strengths of collaborative academic-industry interaction in the Galway region, and will provide graduates with a solid foundation in key areas of software design, a choice of software architecture specializations in either .NET or Java Enterprise. The final aspect of the course involves a guaranteed three-month paid work placement to gain relevant experience, and as a result provides the opportunity to kick-start your career as a software developer.

As each student progresses through the course, training content is determined by their associated industry partner.  On completion of the course, students will have transformed their employability in the current economy, with a range of great options opening up to them for further progression either in industry or via more specialisation through a Masters degree. 

The industry partners involved include Avaya, Ericsson, Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI), Hewlett Packard, Storm Technologies, The Marine Institute, Solano Tech Ltd, NetFort Technologies, SourceDogg, Schneider Electric, CISCO and IBM. The new course will be delivered as part of the Information Technology Discipline’s complimentary portfolio of postgraduate degrees.

Making the announcement, Dr Enda Howley, Course Director, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for highly motivated analytical graduates from engineering, science and business, to invest just one year of their time in further education. Through placement experience with our Industry partners, they will have an excellent prospect for recruitment as software developers in Ireland’s high tech ICT sector. This sector is experiencing rapid expansion at the moment, and there is a growing skills shortage for ICT graduate roles that these students are ideally suited to fill.”

Head of Information Technology in NUI Galway, Dr Michael Madden, said: “It is estimated that there will be 900,000 unfilled vacancies in the EU for ICT professionals by 2015. Now is a perfect time for people to reskill for employment in this sector, and courses such as this are designed specifically to make this as straight forward as possible. The economy is full of very talented and enthusiastic engineering or science graduates who unfortunately are finding it difficult to find employment due to a skills mismatch. But these people are ideally suited for a career in the ICT sector, and simply require some targeted training. Take for example, civil engineers. They are known for their great problem solving abilities, and having a can-do attitude. These are often the most sought after, and hard to find skills for software developers.”

The course is open to all those who have a level 8 degree, or alternatively those with a level 7 degree with some relevant industry work experience. The course is ideal for those from a Science or Engineering background, and relish challenges along the lines of problem solving or project work.

Applications are now being processed and those interested can apply through www.ictskills.ie or seek more information via Twitter, @hdipindustry.  The deadline for applications is Friday, 17 May and with significant interest expected, early application is advisable. For further queries contact Dr Enda Howley at ehowley@nuigalway.ie.

-ENDS-