Department of Skill Development Teams Up with FSTT and Cisco to Select Highly Skilled Professionals in Telecom, IT & Networking

The WorldSkills Competition will be held in September 2009 in Canada, and this is the first time that Thailand will send a representative to compete in the ICT category of this international skills competition.

Nakorn Silapa-acha, director-general of Department of Skill Development, said: "With the rapid growth of the ICT industry, the market demand for highly skilled ICT workers has continuously increased over the last few years, especially in the ares of telecom, computing and networking. This is because infrastructure and networking is beginning to play a more important role in the development of the country. Having realized the importance of ICT skills, the DSD has collaborated with public and private organizations to train and develop skilled ICT professionals. The DSD has therefore added ICT skills into the national skill competition in order to select a representative to compete in the WorldSkills Competition."

The WorldSkills Competition is an international skills competition held every two years, where 50 member countries meet and compete in various vocational skills. Seventeen representatives from Thailand joined WorldSkills 2007 in seventeen categories. The Thai team won four silver medals and seven medallions of excellence.

Prasit Teekaput, president of the Foundation of Scientific and Technology Council of Thailand (FSTT), said: "The FSTT and DSD have cooperated with Cisco Thailand to support the development of ICT skills and select a representative of Thailand to join the 40 th WorldSkills Competition, which will be held on September 1-7, 2009 in Canada. This is the first time that Thailand will send a representative to compete in Telecommunication Distribution Technology (Worldskill 43) and IT/PC Network Supporting (Worldskill 39)."

The DSD and FSTT have successfully worked with several private organizations to train vocational students and send the best ones to join the WorldSkills Competition in various skill areas. And this time, with the help of Cisco, the world's leader in networking technology, the DSD and FSTT believe that they will be able to select the best qualified ICT representative for Thailand.

Tatchapol Poshyanonoda, managing director, Cisco Thailand, said, "Cisco organized the National Networking Skills Competition under its Networking Academy program over the last three years, and has trained over 20,000 networking professionals in the country. With extensive experience in screening and training IT professionals, we are well-positioned to help select a highly qualified ICT representative."

This year, the national competition will be known as the " National Skills Telecom and IT/PC Network Competition 2009 " and the applicant qualifications will be expanded. It will no longer be limited to students under the Networking Academy program. The test will cover a comprehensive range of ICT knowledge, including server, storage, operating system, networking and security areas so as to be in line with the WorldSkills Competition. The application period is from January 5 to January 21 , 2009. The first round of theoretical test will occur on January 31. The top 20 scorers in each skill area will enter the final round.

All finalists will then undertake a three-day practical test from March 25 to 27 , 2009 , and the sole winner in each skill area will represent Thailand at the WorldSkills Competition in Canada . Before the international competition, Cisco will provide training in networking to Thailand's representative, while the DSD and FSTT will collaborate with other partners to deliver training in other subject areas.

Tatchapol added that this national competition will allow Thai youths to demonstrate their capabilities on the biggest stage of all. Interested students are encouraged to take part in this competition. Cisco is an official sponsor of the WorldSkills Competition. Cisco believes that the network plays a vital role in how people live, work, learn and play, and is committed to helping develop the talent to build, deploy and manage the network. This competition is an important step towards enabling Thai students to show their competitiveness at the global level. Moreover, it will promote the development of qualified human resources for the market and raise awareness to the importance of skilled professionals in networking area.