Greetings from the National Press Club in Canberra, where Malcolm Turnbull, Minister for Communications, is speaking at the launch of "Australia's Digital Pulse". This eighty page report was prepared for the Australian Computer Society (ACS) by Deloitte: http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/au/Documents/Economics/deloitte-au-economics-australias-digital-pulse-160614.pdf
Brenda Ainslie, ACS President, said we need a deeper pool of ICT professionals and a focus on STEM skills in classrooms. The report was prepared by Dr Ric Simes and John O’Mahony at Deloitte Access Economics. As well as the full report the key findings are available. One point made by the authors is that while ICT is important to the economy and there are plenty of ICT jobs, the enrollments in ICT at Australian universities is declining. Australia is now importing many more ICT professionals than it is graduating at its own universities. The mining sector diverted students from ICT to other industries. Also the perception is that ICT degrees are for geeks, not cool digital business people. Also the current boom in the ICT industry is not as visible as the mining boom. The authors also warned of a digital divide at schools, with a few who are literate and many who are not. Computer studies at Australian schools are also declining. A national curriculum of digital technologies is being introduced but I notice that NSW appears not to be prompt to implement it (a topic for a future ACS e-Learning Special Interest Group in Canberra). The Minister said he was excited by the digital revolution, including the additional hotel rooms being provided in Sydney without any new buildings, due to Internet booking. The minister urged Australia to embrace the volatility due to the Internet. Perhaps Australian government agents will use digital currency to buy off people smugglers in the Arafura Sea ;-) More seriously, the Minister asked why female participation in the ICT industry is decreasing.He suggested joking that some culture change to the stereotypical pizza eating caffeine drinking male computer nerd. I did a quick search of the report and found that "Massive Open Online Course" (MOOC) gets a mention, but no other forms of open access to education. http://blog.tomw.net.au/2015/06/australias-digital-pulse.html -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/ PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link