Student's shunning ITC courses

A 56% drop in the number of students accepting third level computing courses is posing a very real threat to the sustainability one of Ireland’s most successful and secure sectors, it was claimed today.

The Director of Information Communications Technology at Tipperary Institute warned there has to be a realignment of interest in ICT posts.

James Greenslade said the drop from 4,097 students taking up third level ICT courses in 2000 to 1,791 last year was extremely worrying for Ireland’s excellent international reputation in the sector.

“Ireland is considered to be one of the brighter lights in the ICT sector worldwide, punching way above its weight, but the dramatic fall-off in the number of students undertaking third level courses in the sector is very worrying to say the least,” he said.

“It has the potential to damage our competitiveness in one of the stronger performing sectors and one that earned our country international recognition throughout the ’90s.

“The construction sector is getting so much attention because of the potential loss of jobs, this is one sector where jobs are available and is crying out for high quality graduates.”

The academic said the sector employs 83,400 people, representing 8% of total employment in industry and services, and created 3,386 new jobs in 2006.

“However many leading companies such as eBay, Microsoft and Google, who have established their European Headquarters in Ireland, are currently being forced to recruit from overseas and the fear is that they will eventually begin to re-evaluate their operations here if they cannot recruit their staff,” he added.

“There are sufficient high quality courses but we need to start stimulating interest in them again at second level and beyond.”

Mr Greenslade said there was a grave need for high quality computing graduates, adding that the recent success of Havok in winning a technical Emmy at an awards ceremony in Las Vegas proved how Irish ICT companies could climb to the top of the international ladder.

“With our economy tightening and many jobs at risk, the last thing we should do is allow one of our best performing sectors to weaken because we don’t have graduates to fill the posts,” he added.

“The ICT sector was one of the sparks behind the boom of the last decade or so here and we must continue to feed it with the required amount of graduates.”