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The board of FIT (Fast-Track to IT) said on Thursday that the first phase of the project will see about 1,250 people from disadvantaged areas enter employment with another 260 in further education. The remainder, it said, are at "various stages of progression towards employment." The first phase of the programme will conclude in September 2002.
FIT was established in 1999 with the aim of helping the long-term unemployed fill the skills shortage that the Irish IT industry was facing at the time. It is a partnership between the IT industry, local communities and government agencies (FAS & VECs), with the organisation's board including representatives of major companies like Eircom, AOL and Microsoft.
According to Pat Nolan, co-chairman of FIT, the initiative has succeeded in its primary objective. "The idea was to develop a new recruitment stream for the IT sector by working with people from disadvantaged areas and that has been achieved," he told ElectricNews.Net.
"A lot of the people who took part in FIT training hadn't even completed second level education and were long-term unemployed," he added. "FIT has helped them receive qualifications in areas such as quality assurance and PC maintenance, and graduates are employed by companies such as Microsoft, Dell and AIB."
However, Nolan said that there was still an "enormous" amount of people on the wrong side of the digital divide in Ireland. As such, he said, FIT will concentrate in its second phase on developing IT literacy and up-skilling, as well as expanding the IT recruitment pool.
"There is a growing recognition that it will be very challenging to succeed in any industry or sector if a person does not have a sufficient level of IT literacy," said FIT in a statement.
FIT's next phase aims to train 3,000 people from disadvantaged communities over the next three years.
The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, TD, met senior IT executives from many of the firms involved in the project on Thursday. Afterwards he complimented their commitment and said that FIT represented a model of best practice with potential for wider application.
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