The majority of non-computing students perceive that information technology as a career would be "boring".
Currently, IT employers are struggling to fill vacancies, while the number of students applying for IT-related degrees is falling. Research by careers charity Crac shows that, while non-computing students think IT job prospects are good, and have few negative perceptions of IT professionals themselves, 63 percent believe a job in IT would be "boring".
"Over 60 percent of non-computing students cited boring work as the main reason they would not join the sector," stated Crac development director Robin Mellors-Bourne. "Employers should be able to counter that kind of perception. We found that very few of the students hold negative perceptions about the IT profession or its people."
The British Computer Society called on employers to encourage students to study ICT through work-experience schemes.
"Greater exposure of young people to the merits of a job in the IT sector is vital. We need to show them the variety of roles in IT and the importance that IT carries today. IT is at the heart of business these days and there are real opportunities now to have a career in IT which will ultimately lead to a position on the board," said Mike Rodd, learned society director at BCS.
Crac also said that under-representation of women in IT is likely to worsen rather than improve. The percentage of female applicants for IT degree courses fell from 18 percent to 15 percent between 2001 and 2007, and female students of computer science as an A-Level fell from 14 percent to 10 percent over the same period.
However, the proportion of females undertaking ICT A-Levels, which tend to be based on user skills, has risen to around 40 percent between 2001 and 2007. Crac said that, despite the under-representation of females as students for ICT qualifications, they "outperform male students, in terms of results, at all levels".
Talkback
Our lecturers saw the new mini computer a couple of weeks before us but whereas they had to "work" and we students didn't, we soon surpassed their knowledge levels. We had to bootstrap a loader to get to the tape reader and all editing was done offline on a tape punch. Our coursework was to create an editor to enable the work to be done on line on disks.
Nowadays the courses supposed to entice people into the IT world are mostly, as mentioned, user courses. How to use a spreadsheet, How to use a database etc. This isn't ICT, this is what most office workers do in their normal usage.
The Nulab way is to teach people to drive vehicles and then instead of issuing a driving licence providing a "car mechanic" A level certificate instead.
Should they make it to an IT career, it does appear that most of the people are now clones.
I quite agree with the previous commentator. However, I would go further. There used to be two levels in the technical department; technicians and engineers. Technicians would be the ones adding users, changing printer cartridges etc. The engineers would be the ones debugging intractable problems and breaking new ground; but not these days.
The sequence seems to have gone
IT Management: These geeky engineer types are weird and expensive. We need to work out a way of getting rid of them.
BigSoftCorp: How about if we build their expertise into the admin applications and teach the technicians how to use them. We'll break the whole thing down into preset jobs and do a course for each. You can then send your technicians on these courses, or hire in someone with the right certificate and save loads!
IT Management: Ooooh [quiver] go on then.
[fast forward 10 or 15years]
IT Management: We're trying to recruit people who have already got a certificate for the exact versions of this mammoth laundry list of products, but there's nobody out there .. and when we do find someone, they just seem to be worthless badge collectors, no actual flair. There must be a skills shortage!
Formative IT *Engineers*: I want to actually understand the systems from quantum physics all the way up to the underlying systems engineering principles and be able to design and migrate stuff to improve it. I don't want to be taught how to "click here" with no clue as to what's going on under the hood. IT'S BORING !!
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So now we have wailing that people are avoiding the IT trade, that employers can't find people to run their click here palaces and that systems don't really do what's needed and they don't why.
Dumb down the systems, and you get dumb systems. Dumb down the systems administration and you need sysadmins that are willing to play dumb.
Option B
Pick up the systems out of the heritage that predates this whole mind numbing strand. Unix and related systems are not based on this flawed approach. They assume that there is someone with the knowledge at the helm, with lesser permissions doled out to those folks looking after the day to day.
P-p-p-pick up a penguin !!
[Cue outrage from assembled win-tards] >;-)
I couldn't agree with both of you more, courses are too end user focused and (on a personal note at least) I find knowing how something works gives you a far better understanding of how best it can be used.
Using the car example, I wasn't at all interested in cars untill I could drive.
Now, I can service my car myself as well as understand how each piece works.
There are people who can use a system and there are those who actually know how it works, and most courses seem to be aimed at the former not the one who has to fix it when it goes wrong! (Me!)
Yellowcaves car mechanic explains this beautifully.
My mum can drive but she has no clue how her car works.
I may be a "win-tard" but I agree with Andrew, Unix/Linux have always struck me as being aimed at those who know what they are doing. Or is this just becuase it's not so mainsteam as Windows? If it was would more people know how to use it? Probably.