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Holistic education essential - to a degree

Beverley Head, Information Age

12/10/2004 12:17:02

This statistic, unearthed by the most recent ICT Skills Snapshot, suggests that even a first class honours degree in computing may not be enough to land you a job, if you can't communicate, or display an ability to work as a member of a team. As the Snapshot reveals: "As the demand data has shown, interpersonal skills (particularly communication skills) are mandatory; so graduates from a technically focused course may find it more difficult to find a job."

For the universities, this adds a further layer of difficulty in terms of keeping up with the requirements placed on graduates by employers. Already pressured to give students a good grounding in theory, while exposing them to current marketplace tools and techniques - they are now going to have to equip them to work as effective team members and communicators as well.

Brian Donovan is the chief executive officer of the IT Skills Hub which prepares the Snapshot, and he believes that one of the real pressure points now being faced by the tertiary education sector is "around the area of business skills and interpersonal skills. Employers now want people who bring business and technologies together. What we need is a reflection of that in the curriculums".

While Donovan says that there are some emerging examples (for example at Swinburne University of Technology, University of Technology Sydney and Monash) of courses which combine technical content with development of interpersonal skills, "it is still patchy and we need a more concerted effort.

"Industry is feeling the pinch and they need people to be more versatile," he notes.

Universities already grapple to balance education and training. They know they need to provide students with a good grounding in theory and principles, and interlace that with practical exposure to current tools and technology. At the same time they understand that the traditional eight-year cycle of curriculum refresh is too slow for ICT courses, and so need to tinker continually with content and tools to ensure that each intake of students is studying the most relevant content possible.

The reasoning behind their attempts to balance theoretical grounding and practical exposure to current generation tools is sound: an undergraduate exposed only to the theory probably won't be much use to an employer for some time - where one exposed only to current tools will quickly find themselves outdated and hard pressed to find work. A mix of both is the best approach.

Alice Watkins, director of industry liaison at the Faculty of Information Technology at UTS, confirms that "the goal of a perfect match between industry needs and what education and training are able to provide at any point in time is an elusive one. There is a time lag between recognising the technology skills needed, developing and marketing appropriate courses and then completing the training of the students".

Elusive as the goal may be, it is still being sought in our tertiary institutions.

As the Skills Snapshot notes, Victoria is the largest source of ICT university enrolments in Australia with around 35 per cent of the total Australian population of students. (In 2003 77,004 students were enrolled in tertiary ICT courses in Australian universities). Among Victoria's ICT institutions, Monash stands out, being one of the largest such faculties in the world.

Professor Ron Weber, dean of the faculty of IT at Monash, is attempting to address the speed at which curricula change by implementing incremental changes throughout a course's life, making it more relevant with each small change without sacrificing long term quality. He says that besides balancing theory and practice, the university is also attempting to ensure students get valuable exposure to real life situations which will provide them with those much sought after interpersonal skills.

"One degree is the Bachelor of Business Systems which has an industry-based learning component," says Weber. Far more rigorous than the old sandwich style degrees where a student was sent out into industry to flounder on their own for six or 12 months before returning to the university fold, the industry-based learning components feature very directed learning which is closely monitored by the university, says Weber.

He acknowledges that such a component is not available to each student, but says that by harnessing techniques such as project or studio classes every student gets the opportunity to work in teams and learn interpersonal skills.

"One of the foci we have in terms of industry based learning is that parts of the course depend on team work, and teach students how to endure the frustrations of such team work," he says. Such experience better prepares graduates for real world situations.

Something similar is in train at UTS where students undertake a full time practical workplace experience for up to a year of their degree course. Says Alice Watkins: "The UTS IT degree programmes have also established strong links with industry to ensure that as far as possible teaching is relevant to contemporary needs. Students therefore graduate with the capacity for longer-term high-level development as well as with some relevant work-ready skills and experience."

Watkins also points to the strong demand for career professionals who will rise through the ranks of the industry and the value that a university education can confer on them. "These professionals need to understand how the big picture hangs together and to be able to drive it forward. To do this they also need skills including communication, problem solving, project management and critical analysis which are all developed in a university education."

Michel Hedley, national manager of IT workforce policy for the Australian Information Industry Association, confirms this trend emerging in universities to incorporate many more business skills into their ICT curricula. "They are introducing teamwork and personal research and communications skills so that it is more of an IT professional that emerges," he notes.

At the same time the osmosis of IT skills into many other disciplines means that graduates with significant IT skills are emerging from marketing or commerce faculties, he says. And a new associate degree which is due to be piloted with overseas students at TAFE in NSW next year may also give university students a run for their money in the jobs stakes.

While the Hub's Donovan acknowledges that in the current climate there is possibly a small oversupply of ICT personnel, there are still difficulties finding people with particular skills. He nominates IT security and IT risk management as particular points of industrial pain being only slowly addressed by universities. Donovan says that in the case of IT risk management he is aware of only a single course - a Masters at the University of Southern Queensland. Next year of course there could be dozens of other courses, but by then demand may also have moved on.

But whatever the current fad, Alice Watkins remains adamant that a holistic approach to education be maintained. "What is important for the IT industry as a whole is that a healthy balance exists between short-term skills training and longer term education," she says.