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IT skills improvement plan aims to close UK productivity gap

An action plan for IT skills improvement is aiming to reduce the productivity gap with France, Germany and the USA within three-years.

The plan was launched yesterday by e-skills UK, the Sector Skills Council for IT, telecoms and contact centres, and the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Ruth Kelly.

e-skills UK has developed the action plan following extensive research which showed that one-quarter of British businesses lack employees with the everyday IT skills to do their jobs. One-third of companies with vacancies for IT staff also find them hard to fill, and of these companies, more than three-quarters (76%) said they had to delay the development of new products and services.

Cisco Systems, IBM, British Airways, Ford and EDS are among the employers who have pledged to invest in the action plan, called the Sector Skills Agreement for IT (SSA for IT).

Employers will offer resources to the plan including employee hours, work placements, 'business guru' advisors in support of undergraduate programmes and development, design and delivery of programmes such as Computer Club for Girls (CC4G) and national vocational qualifications like ITQ linked to the e-skills Passport.

Karen Price, CEO of e-skills UK, said: "Businesses, and the entire UK economy, are dependent on having a workforce with the right IT skills. The SSA for IT is the first time employers, industry, the education sector and government have joined together on this scale to collaborate on UK IT skills improvement. This is not just about improvements in the IT sector, but across the whole economy as more UK organisations benefit from better exploitation of technology."

Duncan Mitchell, VP and MD of UK and Ireland, for Cisco, a company heavily involved in the SSA for IT, said: "The Sector Skills Agreement for IT (SSA) represents the first time that employers have sat down and agreed on how best to give our workforce the skills it needs to transform UK IT.

"But agreeing what is needed is only the first step. As employers we now need to demonstrate real commitment to it. That is why Cisco is committed to supporting SSA programmes. We will be sending employee volunteers in to help support CC4G clubs, be giving work placements as well as supporting the delivery of the ITMB degree. I urge other employers to do the same."

The SSA for IT includes a three-year timetable of key milestones which includes:

* Increasing the skills of 750,000 people who use IT in their day to day jobs through a vocational ITQ linked to an employer assessment tool called e-skills Passport.

* Offering 1,000 students the first-ever IT employer-designed degree at the universities of Reading, Greenwich, Central England and Northumbria by September 2005. The Information Technology Management for Business honours degree will be rolled out to 17 more universities before 2008 and to 1000 undergraduates each year.

* Encouraging 150,000 girls, aged 10-14 years, in 3,600 schools around England to consider a career in IT through an out-of-school programme called Computer Clubs for Girls (CC4G). CC4G pilots have resulted in nearly two-thirds of girls saying they are more likely to consider a career in IT after attending the club. Currently, only one in five IT professionals in the UK are women.

e-skills UK believe these programmes will act as a catalyst for the necessary infrastructural change, such as the IT diploma, which will ensure that IT skills improvements are embedded into tomorrow's education system.

Education and Skills Secretary Ruth Kelly said: "A long term strategy to ensure broader, deeper and ever-evolving IT skills across all sectors of the economy is fundamental to our productivity and competitiveness. The Sector Skills Agreement for IT sets out the action plan, developed with employers, training providers and government which will provide business with the IT skills needed to make a difference to our prosperity."

External links

Sector Skills Agreement for IT

ITQ

Computer Clubs for Girls

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