|
1 December 2004
The Northern Territory is likely to face a significant shortage of skilled information technology graduates within the next three years according to industry experts.
 |
Charles Darwin University's Head of School of Information Technology, Associate Professor Bob Pascoe |
“Nationally, the IT sector is screaming out for skilled people at a time when there has been a huge reduction in student applications for university IT places,” Head of Charles Darwin University’s School of Information Technology, Associate Professor Bob Pascoe, said.
Mr Pascoe indicated that a Olivier Internet job index survey showed over a recent twelve month period that IT vacancies were up nearly 80 per cent, the highest of any sector surveyed by Olivier, but that applications for university high-tech IT places Australia-wide had dropped by more than 50 per cent during the last couple of years.
“When this situation is projected forward to 2007 - the time it takes to train a full-time IT student - there will be a serious shortfall of IT professionals entering the market.”
Locally, Mr Pascoe said that the IT imbalance is already taking its toll and that the Territory is disproportionately affected because of the substantial number of large new projects in the NT that require infrastructure - a lot of which is IT.
“Recently, I talked to three local industry players, each having had placed graduate job advertisements in the last three months with virtually zero applications,” Mr Pascoe said.
However, a number of NT organisations recognise the issue and are working with the University to respond to the problem with support for attracting new people into IT training.
“Given the size of the NT ICT Industry and its growth potential both within the NT and to export, we definitely need an increase in skilled ICT workers," the Australian Information Industry’s NT branch chair, Nigel Sellers, said.
Chair of the NT branch of the Australian Computer Society, John Weippert, agrees that there is an imbalance in supply and demand starting to show up and it is probably worse in the NT.
“In helping to tackle the issue, the Computer Society Foundation is currently entering into negotiations with Charles Darwin which will hopefully see substantial funding flowing to the University to assist in attracting the best and brightest to the IT industry”.
Computer Sciences Corporation’s Peter Kent said more IT students were needed in the Territory and that CSC scholarships will help attract ‘new blood’ and retain locals with technical aspirations.
“We will be increasing the number of scholarships to encourage students to move from year 12 into IT training in the Territory. For at least eight students we will be offering a $1000 grant and a fantastic new-generation HP Tablet computer,” Mr Kent said
Information on scholarships and IT courses at Charles Darwin can be viewed at www.cdu.edu.au
|
