Information Technology Training in Developing Countries

Abstract

It is well known and well documented that there is a severe shortage of information technology professionals around the world. In an approach to address this shortage, Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina and the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica haw developed a training program to help produce and sustain an information technology workforce in Jamaica. This paper describes the Caribbean Institute of Technology (CIT), a software training institute that was started in Jamaica in 1999. The institute consists of a main centre in Montego Bay and several satellite centres distributed across the island of Jamaica. These centres provide an intense ten-month training program for up to 100 Jamaicans at each site every year. The paper describes the organisation of the centres, the curriculum of the program, the co-operative efforts between Furman University and the University of the West Indies, and the future direction of CIT. Although this paper describes a case study within Jamaica, such an institute night well be duplicated in other developing countries.