Chief Executive Officer Vijay Kumar Thadani said NIIT currently has centres in Kuala Lumpur, Klang, Prai, Seremban, Melaka, Johor Baharu, Teluk Intan, Penang, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu. 'The target is to increase this to 50 over the next three years with the strong support of the government,' he said.
NIIT, which was founded in 1982, offers training, education, knowledge management, e-learning and software solutions in over 37 countries worldwide with over 1,000 corporate clients and 400,000 individuals.
The India-based corporation made its entry into Malaysia in 1997 and was among the first 20 global companies to be conferred the MSC Malaysia status.
According to Thadani, NIIT is looking at collaborating with educational institutions that offer degree programmes.
'Much of the focus in NIIT's programme is on skill development. We believe a formal degree programme provides a strong foundation of knowledge,' he said.
At present, NIIT has a partnership with Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (Unitar) for the development of over 100 hours of instructional materials for its bachelor's degree programme.
Thadani said NIIT had also licensed its Vista multimedia engine for developing future learning content to Unitar.
He also highlighted the need for skilled manpower in the global information and communications technology (ICT) industry and the important role that countries like Malaysia can play in meeting this need.
'There will be an estimated shortage of nearly 56 million IT professionals in the developed countries by 2020. NIIT is focused in developing the relevant talent in countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and India to meet this need,' he said.
