SA needs more IT graduates

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protzkrog

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http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2089142,00.html

Johannesburg - South Africa is facing a serious IT skills deficit due mostly to a lack of training, said an IT trainer on Monday.

"We are not seeing a big enough inflow into the economy of IT and engineering graduates," said director of black-empowered IT training company IT Intellect, Peter Denny, in a statement.

"This is a serious problem and I believe it is getting worse."

Denny said the shortage was a "serious problem" for the country's economy.

"SA schools need to push science and technology more forcibly. There has to be a more concerted focus on this," he said.

"There are just not enough young adults coming out of school with the ability to move on into the tertiary level and undertake IT, engineering or science-focused degrees or diplomas."

Denny said the problem in SA was different to that in the United Kingdom, where the shortage of IT skills was due to the export of IT and engineering jobs to other countries including China and India.

The UK needs to increase its technology, science and engineering degree holders to 97 000 within seven years, up from the current 45 000, said Denny.

He said SA was, like the UK, losing skills to other countries "as young people opt to leave the country to work overseas, due to perceived higher levels of employment, overall opportunities and, frankly, considered safety factors".
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I was at a graduation ceremony at Potch last week, there were no black Bsc. IT graduates...although 6 started in 2003, they fell out along the way.
 
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*yawn* such bull. Look after the experienced once, and there won't be a shortage... Hell, they might even encourage the youngsters to get involved!
 
I thought there were tooo many IT peeps??

Looked in the paper recently? Not exactly easy to land an IT job fresh out of college.

I had to go overseas to start my IT career...
 
MeNeZ said:
I thought there were tooo many IT peeps??

...
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Yeah, too may running around with certificates of attendance from all sorts of courses they have paid to do and now don't understand why they can't land that 500K a year CIO job :D
 
McSack said:
Yeah, too may running around with certificates of attendance from all sorts of courses they have paid to do and now don't understand why they can't land that 500K a year CIO job :D
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ja nee, a Degree from a reputable university is worth much more than a stack of Damelin, CTI, etc. certificates and diplomas...
 
Before anyone starts bashing Potch for being Afrikaans and and citing it as the reason no black student we are aware of graduating:

I graduated with Bcom IT. I loved IT, now I don't want anything to do with it, I will not fix PCs for friends, I will not work on hardware and I might program something if I get paid enough, more than what I am worth or if I need the program myself. The course is very boring, even compared to accounting, which is dull.

I also noticed several black students in my first year, I also noticed that they fell away due to not studying enough.

There are several excuses used for black students failing. The most common is language barriers. My family lived in Kenya for 5 years, I did not go to school for 5 years either but I still managed to complete grade 10 and matriculate with university exemption. I never failed a course and studied in English since my Afrikaans is just as bad.

Furthermore most of the textbooks are only available in English. Which puts English students at an advantage rather than a disadvantage.

Peter Denny, I will leave South-Africa with my IT degree, even though I hate IT will work overseas and work as hard as I can, with a positive attitude, but I will never do any IT work in this country unless it pays me well over what I can earn overseas because of AA.
 
If this is the case, that there are not enough, then why is it that those of us that do have cannot get a real job. I have a BSc (CS IT) and the only job I can land is a network controller, paying piddles. If there was a guarantee of a decent job, maybe more would take it up. Spend R75 000 getting a degree, and you come out, to a job that pays R75k a year. Go figure. Spend 4 years of your life earning nothing, to come out earning less than your mates who didn't study. Great incentive that is.
 
protzkrog, I also graduated this year. Suppose we were in the same classes even. :-) System Analysis and Design was were I decided enough was enough, I suppose Bcom ppl didn't program enough to make us see the nicer side of IT.
 
graviti said:
If this is the case, that there are not enough, then why is it that those of us that do have cannot get a real job. I have a BSc (CS IT) and the only job I can land is a network controller, paying piddles. If there was a guarantee of a decent job, maybe more would take it up. Spend R75 000 getting a degree, and you come out, to a job that pays R75k a year. Go figure. Spend 4 years of your life earning nothing, to come out earning less than your mates who didn't study. Great incentive that is.
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Just a question here... which degree out there is going to get you a better starting salary?
 
If IT companies in ZA knew how to look after their staff people might stay with them for longer. IT staff dont make good corporate citizens, they have a terrible tendency to think for themselves.
 
IMHO a degree only gives you a better chance of getting an entry level job over someoine who doesn't have a degree. After that it's up to you what you make of things. I currently contract at a company whose CIO / COO (IT) doesn't have a degree and have worked at one of the big 4 auditing firms where IT audit partner never had a degree.
Experience and being able to do the job are the biggest criteria in the industry.
 
w1z4rd said:
IT staff dont make good corporate citizens, they have a terrible tendency to think for themselves.
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heheh ja

but we've got one technical oke (AA candidate) that fiddles around with the agp card and throws the PC case around, while the PC is on...eish donner...then it broke...but he is AA, so it's OK

so they don't always think for themselves...sometimes they don't think at all
 
McSack said:
IMHO a degree only gives you a better chance of getting an entry level job over someoine who doesn't have a degree. After that it's up to you what you make of things. I currently contract at a company whose CIO / COO (IT) doesn't have a degree and have worked at one of the big 4 auditing firms where IT audit partner never had a degree.
Experience and being able to do the job are the biggest criteria in the industry.
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ja, very true, in the beginning a degree helps alot...but after that, it's experience that counts (well, not always in the new SA, skin color as well...)
 
@McSack: I'm not quite getting your question, so I won't try to answer it. But I do have a question of my own.

Where are the jobs that create these shortfalls. I have a degree which is primarily about programming. I take this degree into the ZA IT world, and what use is it to me. Nobody wants it. So I'm stuck doing hardware support and network controlling. The few jobs that have development as a requirement either pay way to little, or have too strict a requirement, for example 3 yrs in C#. What if I don't like using C#. I prefer Java, or C++. That's held against me, even though in theory, it is just another syntax to learn, and a new library structure. They say, go learn C#. But what am I supposed to do. I work in support, and I have no pet projects (or time for pet projects) at home. And to learn a new language requires motivation, or a project to get you going. The problem is, that requires inspiration, and I'm sure everyone will agree. Network controll and hardware support are not exactly the most inspirational jobs available.
 
BSc (CSIT) [Bachelor of Science, (Computer Science and Information Technology)] from UND/UKZN. My final year was during the change from University of Natal, Durban, to University of Kwazulu Natal.
 
check www.pnet.co.za, lots of jobs there. upload CV, I'm still getting calls every week from recruiting agencies and ppl...eish

I have a Bsc. IT degree from Potchefstroom University (now North-West University), took about 2 months to find a decent programming job
 
graviti said:
@McSack: I'm not quite getting your question, so I won't try to answer it. But I do have a question of my own.

Where are the jobs that create these shortfalls. I have a degree which is primarily about programming. I take this degree into the ZA IT world, and what use is it to me. Nobody wants it. So I'm stuck doing hardware support and network controlling. The few jobs that have development as a requirement either pay way to little, or have too strict a requirement, for example 3 yrs in C#. What if I don't like using C#. I prefer Java, or C++. That's held against me, even though in theory, it is just another syntax to learn, and a new library structure. They say, go learn C#. But what am I supposed to do. I work in support, and I have no pet projects (or time for pet projects) at home. And to learn a new language requires motivation, or a project to get you going. The problem is, that requires inspiration, and I'm sure everyone will agree. Network controll and hardware support are not exactly the most inspirational jobs available.
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sorry about any confusion mate.. just re-read my post and I can' even understand what my question was

Anyways back to your question. The best response i can give to your concern over the language you prefer is this:
If you were living in the north pole and all you had to sell was ice, how long do you think your business would survive? Any IT pro worth their salt will tell you you go with the flow.
You have to be prepared to motivate yourself...be a self starter (go down to your corner cafe and offer to set something up for them for free)...you have to be able to make the time to improve yourself and you have to be prepared to start at the bottom at a k@k salary
...and even more importantly from my point of view ... you have to love coding, because if you don't, you're going to have a very bad hair day every day
 
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