Charting the future of ICT education

More than 90 leaders from business, government and universities joined together at a national forum last month to discuss the needs of Australia’s future economy and the implications for ICT degree programs today.

Included were representatives from the Office of the Chief Scientist, Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), Australian Council of Deans of ICT and the Australian Council of Deans of Engineering.

Opening the forum, Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel, responsible for providing high-level independent advice to the Prime Minister, set out the challenge to make Australia’s ICT graduates world exemplars.

He emphasised that no industry can create more wealth for our country than technology, in particular ICT, and the importance of acting now to develop those skills in our future workforce.

Noting the irony of an ICT labour market in which “employers are struggling to get workers whilst graduates are struggling to get jobs”, Dr Finkel called for new approaches to graduates with the optimal mix of deep discipline knowledge, complex problem-solving skills, creativity and business nous.

Discussions centred on practical measures to help universities and industry project and prepare for fast-changing workforce needs.

However, one thing from the forum was clear — industry and universities were unanimous in their commitment to collaborate in a more coordinated, coherent and meaningful way.

Out of the forum, an action plan will be worked on that will include developing a reciprocal exchange program between university academics and industry, as well as establishing a national annual review process between ICT faculties and industry that identifies the core and emerging issues in the technology sector.

Other plans may see collaboration on introducing for-credit, work-integrated learning at the national scale in ICT.

Image courtesy of NEC Corporation of America under CC-BY-2.0

Originally published here.