George Brown College Targets Financial Services for IT Students

The Financial Services industry, once seen as a staid, traditional sector with little competition and a small number of dominating players, has today become an industry almost synonymous with rapid change and growth. As the pressure to keep clients’ needs met with the promise of new products and services grows, Financial Service Providers face some challenges surrounding keeping operational costs low, while simultaneously maintaining high levels of service delivery.

This pressure figures largely when Financial Service Providers seek new employees in order to meet client needs. There is a need for employees with strong backgrounds and experience, and can adapt their knowledge and expertise to fit the needs of the organization and serve the clients well.

George Brown College has developed an IT Diploma program specifically targeted to the financial services and health care industries. An exciting new development in this program is the ‘Internationally Trained Professionals’ (ITP) Practicum/Co-op stream. ITP students are newcomers to Canada with at least one university degree from their countries of origin. They take a 2 semester IT program at George Brown followed by a 4 month paid work term in the industry. This program is offered in partnership with the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU).
The first class of ITP students are ready for their work-terms now and are available to Canadian financial services companies. They have a variety of IT-related skills from programming and systems development to web technologies.

Jack Ott, CIO of Allianz Canada, is very enthusiastic about the program, “The ITP work-term program benefits everyone. The students get a running start on their new careers in Canada and the companies get solid professionals at an attractive rate. I can see this program becoming an excellent source of new talent for Canadian insurance companies.”

There is still opportunity for placing students for work-terms, beginning in May, 2003. More information about the ITP program can be found on the web at www.gbrownc.on.ca/itp.html or by contacting Nisha Panchal at 416 415-5000 Ext. 4919, or at [email protected].