Published on the 05/11/2015 | Written by Donovan Jackson
While the introduction of a new graduate school for advanced ICT studies is a step in the right direction to produce the sort of candidates New Zealand high tech companies need, it is focused on the wrong end of the spectrum…
That’s according to Orion Health CEO Ian McCrae, who described the new Wellington ICT Graduate School as ‘an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff’. “By the time postgrads realise their studies aren’t going to get them a job, they’ve done what, six, seven, eight or more years of study, the best part of their lives, focused on something which the market doesn’t need,” he said.
Instead, he said it is at primary school that students should be introduced to and encouraged to study towards technology subjects. “The education system needs to train people towards areas where there are a lot of jobs. We’ve taught these kids the wrong things; had they done [for example] data science or big data, they would now be hugely sought after. It’s a shame, really.”
Asked to what extent parental direction and the personal choices of students has to play in educational outcomes, McCrae (a father of five) said that encouragement is part of the equation, but still lays blame at the door of government. It’s a curriculum issue, he explained: “I have encouraged my children as much as I can to take digital technology at school; one has done a final year NCA programming course, but could have passed most it with no programming whatsoever. It was just writing reports, project planning, envisioning. Nothing technical. The papers they have are shared with food tech, metalwork and fabrics. They’re too generic.”
Having got his hands on Cambridge papers, McCrae said he is in a position to compare. “They are doing hardware design, logic gates, circuits, software system design, data representations with real numbers, algorithm design and binary hexadecimal storage– I don’t even know what the hell half of it is. This is what Cambridge is teaching; Australia and the UK have taken that even further and are now teaching computer science at primary school level.”
McCrae said this has been brought to the attention of the education department ‘Five or six years ago, but all they have done so far is form a committee.’
“A huge number of our developers and programmers [at Orion] are from overseas. While there’s no problem with that – they are great people and our country has a very good immigration policy – at issue is that Kiwi kids are missing out on these opportunities, which are high-paying, in-demand positions.
“While a new Grad College is a positive development, it’s still an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff. Our kids should be directed far earlier towards studies which will provide them with better prospects in the modern workplace.”
