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September 12, 2006
Information Management in Ireland
Gerard Begley who teaches in Information Management in the University of Limerick in Ireland sent TeachingMIS the following email this week:
"Just a quick comment about things here on this side of the Atlantic, and perhaps these are reflected on your side. Since 2001 there's been a major drop off on the intake of IT (comp science, software systems, information and communications engineering - basically any IT/IS orientated course). There was much talk of an impending skills crisis, but to be frank, I didn't see much evidence of jobs for those who chose to follow IT careers - we went from pages of IT jobs to single adverts for lowly roles such as data input clerk, network admin for small company, etc., but nothing of any substance, and certainly very thin on the ground. In the spring of this year there was a survey about this and some of the experienced IT professionals responded with the view that they could see no reason to recommend IT as a career - and I'd have been hard pushed to disagree. [BTW, I've been working as an IT pro for the past 17 years - the university job is very much a side-line.] In the past 2 months, however, the number of jobs here has gone crazy. We've got loads of roles to be filled in technology companies in Ireland, and the result is a mad rush for the talent. Is this a desirable state? Probably not - it'd be much better if we had structured, managed approaches to hiring, and that would have a more positive effect on the university application rates for IT courses. As it stands, if you're about to start a 4-year course, you're still not likely to choose IT because there's no guarantee of any career, unlike, say, accountancy or one of the other financial careers. And they also pay more and are more highly respected. Not many respect or value engineering as a profession." (emphasis mine)
The same data points seem to be popping up, all over the world. There is a need for business-savvy IT professionals. Our current coursework may not be well designed for the new world. Students need to be shown why IS is not the same as computer programming, and why the combination of business and IT knowledge is so effective. Seems time for us to do something about this.
Posted by DavidK at September 12, 2006 07:06 AM | Permalink