IT skills meltdown: Universities in urgent need of rescue pact with business

There’s a familiar saying, attributed to the Jesuits, that goes “Give me a child of seven, and I will show you the man”.  It may be facile to try and apply it to the IT skills shortage, but there’s a fundamental truth to be seen: our education system from infancy upwards is failing the industry. 

Maths and science have systemically been undernourished in schools, and it’s getting worse year on year.  Whilst seven year olds in the UK may all receive rudimentary instruction in these subjects, the majority remains uninterested.  As children become adults, the state invests much money in educating some of them into their twenties.  But again, maths and science lose out.  Of the 14% of university students who study these essential disciplines, roughly half come from abroad.  The bottom line is written in bold; we don’t have enough scientifically-skilled people coming through the system.

It gets worse.  When our young scientists emerge with their scrolls and mortarboards, chances are they’ll also be clutching a bunch of legacy instruction that will have to be unlearnt or enhanced using their first employer’s investment.  Meanwhile, six thousand miles away, Vietnam has wrapped its economy around a scientific future - churning out some of the world’s leading IT thinkers.  More than 80% of their students are scientists.  And the country is not alone; China, Japan, Taiwan, India…  Each is looking to transmute in the West’s eyes from exploited offshore commodity to innovation powerhouse.  That is what we are competing with. 

Without urgent action, the future’s bleak.  The UK business environment is adaptive; notice how competently we have learned to fill our skills gap in healthcare, hospitality and building.  And so too can our IT needs be outsource or supplied by migrants.  But do we really want to sacrifice our digital innovation for ever?  Do we want to become increasingly parasitic in our use of IT and in the development of new technologies? 

We can get back in the game, but we have gone beyond the point at which gentle, remedial action will make any difference.  There needs to be a radical change of attitude amongst the pillars of responsibility.  Ten years of ‘education, education, education’ seems to have had little effect, but it’s too easy just to blame the Government.  An interface at which sensible investment will be most swiftly beneficial is the one where big business meets tertiary education.  In partnership, universities and enterprises can close ranks to work on the practical gaps - rather than the theoretical wholes.  The shared goal must be to give life to a generation of work-ready, innovation-hungry prodigies. 

On-the-job training provided by companies in the UK keeps our IT workers going.  But there needs to be a strategic shift to concentrate on tomorrow’s staff if the cycle of overpayment and raids on competitors is to be quashed.  In general, business has abdicated its responsibility for funding and energising university IT courses.  With sponsorship, sympathy and inspiration, firms can show young students that there is a genuine and rewarding career at the end of the course.  What is learnt must be relevant and up-to-date - benchmarked against the world’s IT progress, not just against last year’s curriculum.

Conservatively, it will take fifteen years to fill the skills gap.  If each decent-sized company were to commit to providing excellent on-the-job training today, sponsoring students next year and working with a partner university on designing and funding a vocational course in five years time, the UK would be back on track.  With enough momentum at this level, the trickle-down effect will mean that schoolchildren may even reach up to a career in IT rather than stumble upon it.

March 15, 2007 12:46 AM | Permalink