IT in Education.
25mar99: Ben Daglish: Golden rule for IT managers:
"Never hire the graduate."
I'm lucky enough to be part of the 'lost boys' - the children who got the
first generation microcomputers in their Christmas stockings. Once Uncle
Clive had shown us the way with the ZX80, and before the market polarised
into Playstations for the kids and PC's for the moms and dads, we were the
proud owners of these marvellous machines - VIC 20s, Spectrums, Dragons,
MSX's, et al. - that were just designed to be big programmable calculators
that plugged into the television. You could play games, run spreadsheets,
the whole caboodle - but the point was that you HAD to know exactly what the
machine was doing in order to operate the damm thing at all. And if you
wanted it to do anything other than run the five examples that came with the
box, you had to program it yourself.
Suddenly magazines full of BASIC listings came flooding onto the market,
and a new breed of programmer was born - the hacker. The country was full of
12 year olds in their bedrooms writing assembly code, dissasembling ROMs and
doing things with the machine that the manufacturers thought were
impossible. Up until this point (approx 1980), computer programmers were
maths graduates who got to actually touch a terminal only after ten years of
training. Computers were million-dollar boxes that were to be treated with
respect.
While in the fourth year, I formed a company with a few friends and a
teacher, and we started writing educational software. Afer sixth form, I
went off to University to study computing. I lasted a year. Not only was the
standard of programming primitive compared to the standard of the software
we had been writing, but I realised that I had probably written more
programs in 4 years at school than any of the lecturers had in their lives -
and I owned my own computer, rather than a timeshare teminal.
So I left and joined the games industry, which was chock full of people
like me. The sad thing is that 15 years later, those lecturers are still
there, up and down the country. Of course they have progressed, but
unfortunately the IT revolution has progressed faster. One of my
golden rules, and certainly one that still holds true for many IT
managers, is "Never hire the graduate". Three years away from the
real world gives one a handicap that is very difficult to overcome.
Not only that, but the additional handicap of 'computing' being
adopted as part of the mainstream school curriculum means
that todays 'creme-de-la-creme' are leaving campus not knowing how
many bits are in a byte. Just think. Who imparted the 'necessary
information' to the school teachers about what should be in the
National Curriculum Computer Studies?
There actually was an 'A' level computer studies course at our local
college when I was in the sixth form. I took the exam without going
to any of the lessons, and got an 'A'. It was a joke - questions
about hardware that was already extinct and programming problems
that could have been solved by a chimpanzee. (In fact, I
subsequently wrote a letter of complaint to the examining board.
One of the requirements of the exam was to use a GOTO statement
- a practice frowned upon by the cogniscenti.) The point is I,
and everybody who owned one of the mighty micros, had learnt
the subject by ourselves. We knew who George Boole was, because
we had to know how to perform Boolean algebra just to try to
fit "Death Invaders" into 16K.
Nowadays though, George is up there with William the Conqueror
and Samuel Pepys - just another boring Dead White Male that the
teachers drone on about. Boolean algebra is something you get
lectures on in stuffy schoolrooms while you'd rather be outside
playing football. And whereas my mighty micro used to boot up
in 2 seconds and be READY>, Bill's machines take 3 minutes
to boot and a degree in Computer Science to operate. Now
that's progress.
faxfn Note 1: Ben Daglish was one of the early staff at
Gremlin Graphics - a company which specialised in computer
games started in Sheffield some ten years ago. It was recently
reported as being sold for just over £22m.
faxfn Note 2: Computer Weekly has run several pieces on
IT graduates. The issue of 18th March 1999 has three articles
on its front page about the "serious mismatch between the skills
taught to IT graduates in universities and the skills business
needs". The Alliance for Information System Skills is reported
as saying "IT graduates are not getting into IT jobs and non-IT
graduates are".
25mar99: Ben Daglish: From the pages of 'Computer Weekly',
with annotations......
18/3/1999: 'Industry acts on computer skills'
The Alliance for Information Systems Skills, an umbrella
group for IT employers and universities has 'agreed a series
of urgent action points' to adress the current disparity
between the skills provided by IT courses and the skills
needed by the industry.
The Government's IT skills strategy group has identified
this problem as 'one of the key barriers to growth of IT
in the UK'.
'One of''???
18/3/1999: 'IT is "too uncool" for students'
The average university entrant has 19 A level points....the
average IT entrant has 16....
......but cool enough for 14 year olds.....maybe that's
why the best programmers go into the games industry.... instead
of doing A level Computer Studies....
18/3/1999: 'IT degree courses not relevant to business,
research finds'
Skills 99, a report produced by the Government, shows that
only a third of graduate programmers have an IT-related
degree. Arts and sciences graduates are twice as likely
as IT graduates to be working in the industry.
...or those of us who dropped out....
18/3/1999: 'IT graduates lacking specialist skills
and all round savvy, say employers'
"There is a significant shortfall between what universities
and what employers would like"
David Burrows, skills & services development manager,
Microsoft UK
"Industry is looking for PC skills - there would be some logic
in seeing whether universities could achieve Microsoft
accreditation"
Roger Ellis, group IT controller, Blue Circle Industies
"Universities need to get more of a balance between programming
languages and PC skills...I know some IT directors who say they
would not touch IT graduates with a barge-pole. What they learn
at university they have to un-learn. It is much better to take
on a biology student who may have better interpersonal skills."
David Taylor,head of IT directors group Certus
"We reject half our applicants because their application forms
are so badly filled in. It is clear they do not have the right
English skills to sit in front of a client".
Alistair Hardie, managing director, Softwrite.
University salaries start around £14,000 p/a - rarely rising
above £30,000 - about half the average wage of a computer
contracter. BTW - don't you love those snappy headlines?
1/4/99: 'Is bad management to blame for the skills crisis?'
In a well constructed article, Steve Browne, an unemployed computer
contracter argues that inadequate management of the industry is as
much to blame as the academic institutions. Not only are managers
unwilling to fund training in 'relevant' skills, but they are
also too driven by what they regard as 'the latest thing'.
"I have seen adverts requiring two years experience of a product
which had only been available for 14 months" says Steve. "It can
be frustrating to be rejected for Oracle 7.3 jobs because you only
have experience of 7.2"
It's not just the managers - it's the agencies through which
most of us find the jobs. Having just secured another contract
myself, I've spent the last three weeks explaning the difference
between Java and Javascript to agents.
8/4/99: 'Skills crisis set to continue as more women spurn IT'
Women used to make up 29% of the industry 4 years ago - now it's 25%.
'Nuff said.
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