Saint John's Evolves to Deliver Next-Generation Education
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(Bangkok – February 5, 2007) Saint John’s University continues to expand its network of educational alliance under “Saint John’s Group of Schools” program, investing over Bt10 million on network expansion across its campuses to support knowledge transfer and real-time, interactive learning. Saint John’s also launched throughout its group of schools Cisco Networking Academy Program with technological support from Metro Systems and Cisco. Mr. Chainarong Monthienvichienchai, Executive Director of Saint John’s Group, said this investment in high-performance IT networking will enable Saint John’s to deliver next-generation education, allowing students to learn and collaborate in real-time manner, not only within Saint John’s but also with schools worldwide. At present, Saint John’s, in collaboration with the University of Gothenburg, has successfully linked Thai and international kindergartens under its umbrella with schools in Sweden through Electronic Whiteboards so as to enhance learning and interaction skills among pre-school kids. This is part of “Saint John’s Group of Schools” program, which aims to improve private schools nationwide and reform curriculum, especially for English and IT courses which will play a vital role in next-generation education. Moreover, this program will allow participating schools to collaboratively develop standard curriculum and exchange educational management approaches and best practices. “So far, more than 50 private schools nationwide have expressed keen interest in joining the program, with Sahawith School in Suphanburi province being the first eligible school to have been accepted into the program. We expect to select 2-3 more schools this year. Our main objective is to upgrade the country’s education standard and provide access to high-quality education to Thai youths nationwide. This cannot be accomplished without the help of a high-performance IT network.” Mr. Monthian Thananart, Director, Commercial Business, Cisco Systems (Thailand) Ltd., said Cisco has supported Saint John’s by providing best-of-breed networking technologies including Switch Catalyst 6500 and 2960 and Wireless networking equipment. Cisco has also supported Saint John’s Networking Academy Program, targeted at students at various levels, from elementary school to university. This program will help produce networking professionals for the industry. Thailand is facing a shortage of skilled networking professionals. According to a recent IDC study, there will be a shortage of about 6,600 skilled networking professionals in 2009, representing a gap of 15%, rising from 4,000 in 2006. “Enabling Saint John’s students at various levels to learn and collaborate in real time is consistent with our vision for life-long learning and our commitment to changing the way they live with the way they learn. We have played an active role in producing qualified IT professionals to address the market growth.” Mr. Suvij Suvaruchiporn, Metro Systems Corporation Plc. (MSC), said under the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed last year by MSC and Saint John’s, the company has deployed information technology for the university, including installation of large clusters of HP computers. For this year, its main mission is to deploy high-speed network with Cisco technology to address Saint John’s planned expansion and delivery of next-generation educational activities. This includes the deployment of campus-wide Gigabit Ethernet LAN, wireless networking, and centralized network management software for increased efficiency and manageability. Upon completion of network deployment, MSC will start to upgrade Saint John’s data centre. The end result will be a high-performance IT infrastructure that enables teachers at Saint John’s to deliver the best learning experience possible to their students in Bangkok and affiliated schools nationwide. |
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