KEY POINTS:
New Zealand schools and training institutions have some way to go towards adequately preparing students for a career in the IT sector, according to employers, university researchers and the Ministry of Education. One large IT employer says while younger employees know how to use the internet for music downloads and web surfing, fewer can use internet search software properly and many can't efficiently manage email folders, conduct a data backup or use Microsoft Office software like Word and Excel.
"We have to send them on courses at our own cost and these are people in their late teens or early twenties. Why schools can't provide better hands-on training on the most commonly used office software is beyond us," says the employer.
Despite the arrival of the personal computer and Microsoft Windows operating systems in the 80s, computing and specific ICT learning has been an integrated part of the New Zealand secondary school curriculum only since 1998. Yet the ICT Taskforce Report of 2003 set a goal for New Zealand's ICT Industry to contribute 10 per cent of GDP by 2012.
Talent supply to the industry was identified as critical in the report, which stated: "the second biggest constraint to growth of the ICT sector is the supply of appropriately educated graduates. The ICT sector, secondary schools and tertiary institutions should be more strategic in aligning course content and graduate output with industry requirements." . .
However it seems that's easier said than done - whether schools are preparing students for specialist IT roles or simply careers requiring ICT skills. Dr Garry Falloon, senior lecturer in professional practice ICT for University of Waikato's School of Education, says the secondary school computing curriculum evolved from old typing programmes which eventually became application training and University of Waikato research suggests there is a gap between the existing ICT abilities of students and the current school curriculum.
"Teachers are saying 'Look we are running out of gas here'. Kids need good knowledgeable role models, intelligent knowledgeable people, and secondary programmes need a wind up - the problem is where does the curriculum currently sit? Where is it at?" says Falloon.
He says teachers need help to evolve from the old reference environment and be taught how to develop new assessment methods for ICT teaching. Until then he is concerned about how tertiary students interpret online content, and critique and analyse information.
"The ICT perspectives that come out in student assignments at tertiary level can be quite bizarre. There is a need to check sources and know the difference between authoritative journals and online peer journals, blogs, and communal encyclopaedia entries. Employers can't afford people who come to work and are asked to research a topic and then believe everything they read online," says Falloon.
Nils Beehre, education manager for Microsoft New Zealand, says Microsoft is also working with the Ministry of Education to improve teacher understanding and has created an international Innovative Teacher Scholarship that allows selected ICT teachers up to six months working and completing a professional learning programme with a recognised ICT organisation while the school is provided with a relief teacher.
Beehre says secondary schools need to build a "strong ICT bridge" to tertiary education where ICT tools are now routinely used for online study, administration, research and collaboration - and students are expected to be able to use them. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education is not sitting on its hands. It is working on a revised ICT framework for years 11 to 13 and says (in a request for proposal document) that while these programmes already exist, they have "little coherence, status, or relevance to the needs of students, tertiary providers or the ICT industry."
The new framework plans to encompass current programmes but also identify recommendations for further development.
Parents and school boards concerned that these improvements may take too long to be implemented can turn to private training organisations - for a cost.
Microsoft points out several schools already do this and make it a 'selling point.' For their part, training companies are generally happy to deliver schools, teachers, homeschoolers and parents to better access computer studies.
"Our minimum class size is six. So if any teacher or parent is keen to put together a group of six or more similar age students, we will be pleased to hear from them," says Tony Skelton, managing director for Ace Training.
"We are well equipped to teach the basics such as Microsoft Office including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel as well as more high-level certification programmes."
Using private training organisations to 'plug the gaps' in the national curriculum is likely to increase until the curriculum, ICT funding and the skills of ICT teachers - many of who are more than willing to adapt and learn - catch up with the ICT skills required by the modern workplace.
