9th June 1999

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Local graduates are traditionally not placed in the best position to take advantage of the rapid growth of the Telecommunications and Geographic Information Systems industries.

That is the opinion of senior academics at the University of Ulster, who have just established Ireland's first Masters degree course dedicated to Geographic Information Systems and two other interlocked advanced MSc programmes in Geo-Telematics Telecommunications and Distributed Systems.

Dr Adrian Moore, School of Environmental Studies says at less than 250 students graduating each year with such a qualification from courses in the United Kingdom:

"There are no such course in Northern Ireland and the Republic, and that is placing our graduates at an appalling disadvantage".

Dr Gerard Parr, School of Information and Software Engineering stated:

"Our IT graduates have a very high reputation internationally. The industry is expanding and such a qualification would place them in an excellent position to secure the available posts."

The University of Ulster plans to offer three inter-linked courses which can be taken at Postgraduate Diploma or Masters level: one in Geographic Information Systems, one in Telecommunications and Distributed Systems and one in Geo-Telematics.

"Potential employers have told us they are very interested in what we are doing, including BT, Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe and Microsoft. They are already planning to keep and eye on us and our students, which sounds very promising."

Further details can be obtained by viewing our online prospectus at the following site: http://www.ulst.ac.uk/prospectus.

For further information, please contact:

Press Office Department of Communication and Development
Telephone: 028 9036 6178
Email: pressoffice@ulster.ac.uk