The University of Technology Sydney has announced a partnership program with by telecommunications giant Alcatel-Lucent which will see a new ICT training program available at the university from the first semester of the 2012 education year.

 

The curriculum content, purpose-built laboratory at UTS Blackfriars and industry certification program will strengthen postgraduate courses for students who aspire to work with the most advanced carrier-grade IP networks, including Australia's NBN.

 

CEO of Alcatel-Lucent Australia Andrew Butterworth said the partnership with UTS would provide students with a powerful combination of tertiary degree, practical industry-level skills and certification.

 

"Students of Alcatel-Lucent courses at UTS will become the skilled workers our customers need as they develop and deliver the next generation of broadband services," said Mr Butterworth said.

 

Alcatel-Lucent is UTS's first significant telecommunications partner to contribute to the academic engineering curriculum while UTS is the first university in the world to offer the Alcatel-Lucent 'Networking Routing Specialist II' industry certification.

 

"Alcatel-Lucent is the stand-out supplier and innovator of this type of technology in Australia and has been an integral part of the country's telecommunications landscape for generations," said Dr Tim Aubrey, Associate Dean Teaching & Learning in the Faculty of Engineering and IT.

 

Up to 100 UTS students per year will have access to Alcatel-Lucent's facilities, infrastructure and training services. Training will focus on technologies that will form a fundamental part of a broadband-enabled Australia including voice over IP, video over IP, access IP technology, passive optical networks (PON) and others.

 

"UTS students will benefit from gaining up-to-date telecommunications experience, direct from the industry leaders," Dr Aubrey said. "This partnership with Alcatel-Lucent will deliver accelerated learning so that when students graduate they will have the dual benefit of academic and industry-level skills needed to build and manage new networks in a broadband-enabled Australia."