FINAL YEAR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS EXHIBITION 2000

FINAL YEAR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS EXHIBITION 2000

The Minister of Education, Dr. Louis Galea, this evening inaugurated the first Final Year Information Technology Projects Exhibition. The exhibition showcases project work by the B.Sc. Information Technology (Hons.) students for their dissertation. The Information Technology Exhibition has been organised along the same lines as the Engineering Exhibition, which is now in its 5^th edition.

The Information Technology Exhibition will be open to the general public on Friday, 23^rd June from 09:00-13:00 and 14:00-19:30 and on Saturday 24^th June from 09:00-13:00. at the University of Malta, Dar Guzeppi Zahra (Computer Building). The exhibition should provide important windows of opportunity for People from the industry and the general public to view the quality work achieved by the students.

Message by the Minister of Education, Dr Louis Galea, on the occasion of the inauguration of the exhibition of projects by Final IT students, University of Malta, Thursday 22^nd June 2000

It gives me great pleasure to be here today in order to inaugurate this exhibition of projects by IT students at the University of Malta. This is because I appreciate the effort that most students – and their tutors – invest in devising and executing the project. This exhibition should therefore be a showplace of skills and applied ingenuity.

I am especially interested in what this exhibition reveals also because, wherever I turn in my work as Minister of Education, IT is a recurrent theme. IT offers us multiple opportunities as a tool for teaching, lerning and research at all levels of the educational system: primary, secondary and tertiary.

Like many others, I cannot but be concerned by a chronic shortage of IT skills. As a country we are currently plagued by a shortage of staff who are properly trained, skilled and experienced in IT such that they can do a variety of jobs: we do not have enough teachers to teach IT-related subjects and this, once again is a chronic shortage at all levels, whether primary, secondary or tertiary. We do not have enough systems analysts or enough programmers or enough network administrators, technicians, team leaders or project managers.

This shortage of IT staff is not only a Maltese phenomenon and admittedly, what to me is a source of frustration, may be a solace to all those of you who have chosen IT as a career. Market forces are such that IT skills are prized and the laws of supply and demand mean that many IT professionals earn very good money indeed. This has been brought home to me once again recently during the intensive work that the Minsitry is engaged in as part of the preparations for the setting up of the new Vocational College.

When carrying out a needs analysis, the Ministry was told by industry and commerce as well as the Employment and Training Corporation that the new College must complement the work done by the Univesity and train as many people as possible in the field of IT. Malta is simply not training enough people to fill all the jobs going.

I would like to take this opportunity however to share with you a few concerns that have been conveyed to me by prospective investors and employers.

Many employers say – and this is not only applicable to the field of IT – that university graduates are not well equipped with the skills they are looking for in the real world of IT applications. A number of employers are not satisfied with the skills that a typical university graduate acquires, and are instead happy to take on somebody who is less well equipped with an understanding of the theory but is better placed because of applied practical skills.

Let me make it clear that this is not an exclusively Maltese phenomenon. Indeed, the more successful Vocational Colleges outside Malta, especially some of those in the United States, have devised special courses lasting from anything like four months to two years which attract University graduates keen to acquire real-life IT skills. These courses involve placements with exployers, many of whom are only too happy to take on the brightest and best of the bunch of students. These Colleges therefore serve as a direct route to employment even for University graduates. Thus, in some areas we are witnessing a role-reversal: whereas previously some vocational college students would then move to University for further studies, it is now University graduates who are turning to vocational colleges to equip them with the skills required for real jobs in the real world.

Incidentally, lest I be misunderstood, I should make it clear that many of those who have graduated in IT from this University, are today making a good living holding down real jobs in the real world.

I believe it is advisable to keep up the good work at the theoretical level but also to invest more effort in acquiring the skills and experience that will make our IT graduates more attractive to potential employers. We should not re-invent a student-worker scheme that whittles away the time available for serious study as well as a serious work ethic. We have to invest time and effort in finding out what employers require and devise the most cost-effective means for equipping our students with the right skills in a quality way in as short a period of time as possible. With the introduction of the first College Institute dedicates to Information and Communication Technology, I am confident that the University and the College will be working. This is one of the many issues that I expect a new Commission on Further and Higher Education would tackle and facilitate. By creating synergy between the University and the Vocational College we look forward to providing the Maltese educational system with the means to further improve our prospects for prosperity within our society.