Ts Carolyn Ting Hie Choon, Malaysia’s first Cisco CCNP ITQ.
TAR UC has proven its lead in Information & Communication Technology (‘ICT’) education as one of its academic staff, Ts Carolyn Ting Hie Choon from the Faculty of Computing and Information Technology (‘FOCS’), received her specialist qualification from Cisco Networking Academy as a Cisco Certified Network Professional Instructor Trainer Qualified (‘CCNP ITQ’). She is the first Malaysian to obtain this qualification which gives her the honour of being one of the best and elite few Instructor Trainer Qualified (‘ITQ’) members in the Cisco Networking Academy Malaysia. She is now qualified to train instructors across all networking academies in Malaysia as well as countries in the Asia-Pacific (‘APAC’) region so that they can offer the Cisco Certified Network Professional (‘CCNP’) courses in their own institutions of higher learning.
Currently, TAR UC’s diploma and bachelor degree syllabi in ICT prepare students to undertake the Cisco Certified Network Associate (‘CCNA’) qualification. CCNA qualification is the fundamental requirement for jobs such as Network Engineer, System Support Engineer, Helpdesk Engineer, Network Administrator and IT Support Engineer. The next step forward for TAR UC graduates with CCNA qualification is to pursue CCNP courses and with Ts Carolyn Ting’s recognition as a CCNP ITQ, they may do so at TAR UC.
“Many of my students who completed their degree at TAR UC have joined the workforce as IT support and even managers and they are doing well. However, as the IT industry is continuously evolving, it is important for them to continue upskilling themselves to progress in their careers. This is one of the reasons why I decided to pursue the CCNP ITQ qualification as I wanted to help my students to progress in attaining the next certification after CCNA where they can learn advanced networking skills to become SDWAN Provisioning Engineer, Network Support Consultant, Network Security Engineer and Technical Team Lead. My certification will also help eliminate students’ misconception that the CCNP certification is very difficult to achieve because I believe that if I can do it, students are also capable of obtaining the CCNP certification. Besides this, as a qualified CCNP ITQ, I can already run the CCNP courses as a standalone programme using teaching materials provided by Cisco and this will certainly enhance students’ understanding of the programme,” she explained.
With this latest certification, TAR UC is now listed in the Cisco Networking Academy’s website as one of the institutions offering CCNP courses which gives greater prominence to TAR UC as a reputable institution of higher learning not only in Malaysia but in the APAC region. TAR UC has a close collaboration with Cisco that spans over 15 years. This synergistic partnership has produced many students with sound knowledge and skills in the field of networking. Over the years, TAR UC has had actively competed in the various competitions organised by Cisco at national and regional levels such as the Cisco NetRiders Challenge Malaysia, Cisco Packet Tracer Competition, and Asia Pacific NetRiders Competition where TAR UC had emerged in the top three positions numerous times.
