Roundtable discusses IT and students in Canada
Microsoft Canada hosted an industry roundtable on Wednesday. April 4., releasing the results of a national student survey and discussing Canada’s position as a global player in the world of Information Technology.
The survey, conducted by Youthography and commissioned by Microsoft Canada, looked at the influence of technology and the computer skills of Canadian students from Grade 11 to second-year university, and college students around the world aged 17-20.
Present at the roundtable to discuss the survey results were Daniel Shapiro, academic program manager for Microsoft Canada, Neville Samuell, a second-year mechatronics engineering student from the University of Waterloo, Eugene Fiume, former chair of the computer science department at U of T, and Margaret Evered, a consultant and member of the Canadian Information Processing Society.
Of the students surveyed, only 42 percent said that their school encourages them to develop technological and computer skills.
Samuell isn’t surprise by this figure.
“A lot of us are self-taught, especially up until the university level,” said Samuell of the many students interested in technology and computer science. “You have to get out there and make your own future,” he added.
Samuell also emphasized that even though there are post-secondary programs specializing in IT, most of what is learned by students interested in the field is done through self-teaching outside university classrooms.
This mirrors another result from the survey that showed only 15 per cent of respondents believing they learn more about technology from their teachers and courses.
Evered blames the lack of enthusiasm demonstrated by students interested in IT on the fact that technology courses are not mandatory in most Canadian high schools.
“One of my big concerns is that we ask young people to drop these subjects at school,” she said.
Another point brought up by Evered was that young students “really don’t have a clue as to the range of jobs in IT.”
According to a recent figure published by the Information and Communications Technology Council – a not-for-profit group that focuses on developing the Canadian ICT industry – there will an anticipated labour shortage of 89,000 IT workers by the year 2011 despite higher student enrollment in post-secondary technology programs in 2006.
There continues to be a gap between the number of IT jobs demanded and the number of graduates ready to fill them.
“We are underestimating the value of our youth who are graduating from IT programs,” said Evered of the Canadian IT industry. She also expressed anger towards them for not spending the money on company co-op programs that would train recent graduates.
“If young individuals are expecting to move immediately into a job and get considerable training, that’s a thing of the past. Instead you do have to be self-taught and continue to be self-taught,” echoed Fiume.
The trend in the IT industry, as described by Evered, is emerging as a sort of revolving door scenario where new graduates are often hired only for temporary positions. This lowers the incentives for students to stay in IT programs.
“A lot of students are aware of the volatile market,” said Samuell. “They’re a bit afraid of the IT industry and they want to make sure they have a broad skill set.”
Evered advised current IT students to look at gaining experience in the field by applying to co-op programs and summer internships. More importantly, she explained how new IT graduates need to focus on developing their people skills - an asset she believes is essential to employers who are looking to hire within the industry.
“I’d rather have someone mediocre in the technology skills and stronger in the soft skills than vice versa,” she said.
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