Fourteen Public Sector Professionals Graduate from UniSey and Oxford Data Course
đź“· Photo: State House Seychelles, 22 July 2026 (Economic Advisory Council meeting on Aviation and Connectivity)
VICTORIA, Seychelles — A second cohort of working professionals has completed a short course on data and its practical applications, run jointly by the University of Seychelles and the University of Oxford and aimed squarely at the everyday demands of Seychelles’ public sector and industry.
The graduation ceremony, held in Victoria on 24 July, marked the end of a two-week programme in Data Concepts and Applications and brought the number of course completers to 37 across both years, with this year’s group of 14 drawn from a wider mix of government agencies and businesses than the 23-strong inaugural cohort. The initiative sits inside a wider UniSey push to make professional development more accessible, and inside the British High Commission’s long-running education work in the country.
Course facilitator Dr Ernest Guevarra, who designed the curriculum, said one of the most striking changes between the first and second editions had been the way participants now approach their work. The first cohort, he said, treated data as something to be cleaned and queried; the 2026 cohort routinely brought AI tools into their daily tasks, using them to draft, check and explore data before turning to more traditional methods. That shift, he suggested, is changing what counts as entry-level competence in the Seychellois public service.
Dr Guevarra also flagged the variety of sectors the group came from. Public-health analysts, fisheries officers, investment-promotion staff, accountants and IT managers all sat through the same two weeks, which meant the practical exercises had to be adapted to very different working lives. The first week laid out the foundations: data governance, quality, privacy, ethics and the regulatory framework that increasingly governs how public bodies handle personal information. The second week moved into applied work, with case studies drawn from the participants’ own organisations and an emphasis on the tools and methods that can be plugged into existing workflows.
Among the graduates was Audrey Pillay of the Seychelles Fisheries Authority, who said the course had given her a much clearer sense of what her own department could do with the data it already collects. The course, she said, was “highly enriching”, and the skills it built would be useful in everything from day-to-day reporting to longer-term planning. She added that she planned to enrol in the planned Level Two course in 2027.
Darren Low Hong, who manages IT at the Seychelles Investment Promotion Agency, said the course had been particularly relevant to his role, where data increasingly drives decision-making. The only real complaint, he said, was that the two weeks felt too short for the amount of material on offer. His view was echoed by other participants, several of whom said they would have valued a follow-up session dedicated to one of the more advanced topics covered in the second week.
UniSey’s director of marketing and communications, Dolivette Chang Ko, said the partnership with Oxford and the British High Commission had matured rapidly over the past two years. The first cohort had been a proof of concept, she said; the second had been a chance to test the format against a more demanding group, and the results had justified the next step. The University of Seychelles, she said, would publish the requirements and application window for the Level Two course in due course, with the expectation that the new programme would attract both returning participants and a fresh intake.
Mrs Chang Ko encouraged mid-career professionals from across the public administration, parastatals and private sector to keep an eye on UniSey’s communications, noting that the partnership with Oxford was designed to give Seychellois workers the kind of training that is rarely available on the islands at a comparable standard.
Sources cited: University of Seychelles — UniSey; University of Oxford — Saïd Business School (executive education partner); Seychelles Investment Promotion Agency (formerly SIB); Seychelles Fisheries Authority (SFA).
