There is an ongoing debate within the IT industry and among my colleagues at The Corporate IT Forum about whether or not the education system is producing enough people with the right kind of IT skills to enable the UK to remain globally competitive.
Traditionally, the focus of discussion has been on further education, where the study of IT has always been highly technical. In my opinion, this is what universities are for to raise people above the mainstream and to educate them in a specialism.
Students who go to university to study IT should expect to be immersed in the world of systems architecture and computer construction.
Of course, technical learning should not be undertaken in some kind of ivory tower and it is essential that there is a dialogue between business and further education institutions to ensure the commercial needs of UK PLC are reflected.
The government has recently reiterated its desire to meet broader business needs and the important work of the sector skills councils is paramount here.
Perhaps more challenging is the level of IT education that the vast majority of the UK population receives, at school or work.
When it comes to IT in schools and the national curriculum, my verdict is as my old school reports often said “room for improvement.”
On the plus side, IT has been recognised as a core competency. Understanding the basics of IT is considered as important as the ability to read, write and perform basic arithmetic and rightly so.
Today’s citizens need to have a basic grasp of IT, if they are to play a full role in modern society.
With an increasing number of services only available online, it is vital everyone knows how to access resources to minimise the risk of a two-track society of the information rich and the information poor.
I wonder, however, whether the depth of IT understanding of teachers is a limiting factor. Often, pupils are more comfortable with technology than their teachers, having grown up with technology.
My 15-year-old son asked me how I could work in IT given my apparent inability to fix all known home PC problems, so I know the pressure teachers are under.
The point is that children entering school now are already digital natives services such as MySpace and MSN are part of everyday life. For many teachers, much of this new world remains alien.
There is also a danger that the way IT is taught can emphasise presentation over content. For example, PowerPoint can make a project look impressive, whether or not the content is original or of much value.
IT should never be used to mask work of low quality, whether at school or at
work.
The sort of subjects I would like to see taught in secondary schools might
include technology etiquette, touch typing, intelligent use of email and how
technology will affect our lives in the future.
At the moment, the IT curriculum in schools is still in a state of development as technology changes.
I am also hopeful that a new generation of technology-literates will help to ensure that we design systems that are easy to use, accessible and that reflect the needs of users, not the needs of service providers.
Our collective failures to concentrate on how people use technology place a greater burden on the importance of training than should be necessary.
If the general level of IT expertise required by business is to be improved, employers also have a responsibility.
Some people argue the current skills gap will be washed away on a tide of new IT-savvy recruits, but I am not convinced we can wait with such strong global competition, especially from India and China.
It is arguable that the UK’s ability to compete generally and maintain high standards of living compared with other parts of the world will depend heavily on the way we use and exploit new technologies.
I also feel sure that if public and private organisations had a better understanding of IT, we would probably see fewer IT project failures because IT projects come unstuck often as a result of a disconnect between technology and the business.
Increasingly IT and the business need to be viewed as one and the same. And while your average employee will not need to know the finer details of service-oriented architecture, basic IT literacy in the workplace is essential and will remain a challenge for some time to come.
Managers in particular need to understand the impact of IT on job design, on supply chain management and on how IT can deliver higher value or competitive edge through transformation programmes.
Technology offers many advantages: efficiency, competitiveness and service improvement.
But realising benefits depends on people having the right skills to be in control of technology.
Jos Creese is an advisory group member for Tif. and head of IT at Hampshire County Council
