Adib Noor
Mastery in information and communications technology (ICT), especially during the pandemic, provides basic skills needed by the workforce and a competitive advantage to strengthen the quality of service and productivity in line with the development of digital technology in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
This was said by Minister of Education Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Hamzah bin Haji Sulaiman at Micronet International College’s (MIC) 2021 graduation ceremony at Indera Samudra Grand Hall, The Empire Brunei yesterday. The minister stated that the post-pandemic job market will become increasingly challenging and urged educational institutions to remain relevant by designing programmes that prepare students for the rapid development of industry with technological advances through an integrated curriculum.
The minister highlighted that MIC, in its efforts to remain relevant, has actively reformed courses in technology or information technology, such as its joint venture programme with Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB), introduced last year, to produce more graduates in the field of multimedia and network security.
“I understand that MIC has succeeded in becoming one of the private educational institutions recognised as an Institute of Brunei Technical Education (IBTE) approved centre by introducing three new IBTE programmes that will be conducted this year, which are NTec in Business and Administration, HNTec in Office Administration and HNTec in Business and Finance,” he added.
Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Hamzah explained that cooperation between public and private higher learning institutions will be able to provide a synergistic effect to a variety of high quality programmes in line with the third strategic goal of the Ministry of Education Strategic Plan 2018-2022 – involving stakeholders for shared accountability in the learning process for students.
“Such efforts can be used as one of the best practices for other public and private higher learning institutions, to collaborate on further diversifying programmes holistically, such as upskilling and reskilling, as well as life-long learning, especially to meet the human resource needs of the country,” said the minister.
