Matching ICT Education and Job Market needs
“The twenty first century is knowledge-centric. Today’s true competitiveness lies in how well technology is integrated into every economic sector, be it agriculture, industry, service or any other. It is imperative that we invest strategically in this century’s new innovative technologies, integrate such innovations into education system and incorporate innovative measures to our economic framework. We must enhance the quality of life of our people by creating a Culture of Technological Innovation.”
These words, verbatim from President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s manifesto reflects a perfect vision for the future Sri Lanka. No matter how ambitious we are, though, such a future depends on one critical factor: Availability of skilled and experienced workforce with the right attitude. Ultimately that comes down to the quality of ICT education; particularly higher education. That does not mean school education is not making a difference; it certainly does, but tertiary education is what ultimately polishes the diamonds.
This piece is an attempt to evaluate how the supply in higher education sector should best be matched with existing and future demand. It acknowledges the need to correctly identify the demand and adjust supply lines correspondingly. It is not an exercise to find silver bullets but more an eye opener based in the data from the National ICT-BPM Workforce Survey 2019 conducted by Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA).
For a better understanding of the landscape we must get into each demand category separately. For convenience, four demand categories (Figure 1) and five supply categories are identified. Each is unique. Let’s first focus on the demand categories.
Figure 1: Demand Categories for ICT jobs
Demand Category 1: Tech positions in firms with a focus mainly for international market:
Sri Lanka is on the brink of achieving USD 3 billion (about 3% of country GDP) export revenue in 2024. This would be the sector that will make that goal a reality. In terms of clientele only 23% of ICT firms in Sri Lanka caters only to international market while another 52% caters to both local and international. Of the two broad subsectors of global ICT market, most of the Sri Lanka based firms are focusing on software and services. Some of these serve as offshore development centers for major companies from USA, UK, Australia, Sweden, Norway, and Japan. (Total foreign owned firms constitute 22% of all, while 17% are of joint ownership.)
Hardware manufacturing is currently low but it does exist. May be we are in a transition. In another five years it can be an entirely different landscape. For convenience let’s focus on the needs at the moment.
What sort of skills and experience expected by the sector currently? Capturing the entire landscape is impossible given the gamut of products they produce for their clients worldwide. Workforce Survey 2019 provides some indication when it breaks down the current employed by each emerging technology. (Figure 2) DevOps experience, if any, would too come handy, as most these firms run projects on Agile mode rather than the traditional waterfall. In addition to the tech skills, a gamut of soft skills varying from language proficiency to business skills are necessary for a student to get even an entry level position in such a firm. Such a position could be the best one can expect locally.
Figure2: Percentages of present employed working on each emerging technology (not from entire worker population, but only from those who work in emerging technologies)
Demand Category 2: Tech positions in firms with a focus mainly for local market:
One may see this category more like the little brother of the former, but that may be a poor representation. We do not have much information as Work Force Survey does not treat these two categories apart. It only says out of the 600 odd ICT firms in Sri Lanka only 25% catered only to local market. (Local ownership, on the other hand, is as high as 60%) We can only safely assume many firms here are relatively smaller, compared to those in former. Solutions they market too are of a different level. That may provide some idea about the skills set required to place oneself in such a company. But again, that cannot be too generalized as the range here is wide.
Demand Category 3: Tech positions in non-ICT private firms:
Workforce Survey 2019 identified six key non-ICT sub sectors, namely apparel, finance-insurance-banking, Agriculture and fisheries, manufacturing and engineering, trade with freight forwarding and hospitality sector. By size the number of tech positions available in this sector was about one third of the number in core-ICT firms. (27,514 against 81,741 in ICT firms). The portion has been larger previously, but now most non-ICT firms tend to outsource their ICT requirements than employing in-house staff. In addition to the gap in quantity we also see a landscape change between these two sectors with respect to job categories. Figures 3(a) and 3(b) provide the percentages of employed in key job categories in these two sectors respectively.
Figures 3(a) and 3(b): Employed in each job category in ICT and non-ICT firms respectively by percentages
Demand Category 4: Tech positions in Government
Government is an entirely different player. One can be forgiven for assuming the number of tech positions in state to be low. In 2019, it was 8,363 from a total of 124,873 (about 7%). Government also defers in their demand. Figure 4 shows the main job categories in government in percentages.
Figure 4: Employed in each job category in state sector by percentages
There is a similar landscape in supply. Just like in case of demand we can segregate the total supply to five key categories, based on the category of institute that produces graduates and the type of the course. (Figure 5) The latter identifies two streams in undergraduate (ICT and Non-ICT) and ICT postgraduate. (The reason to include Non-ICT undergraduates is they too constitute a key component in the ICT workforce according to Workforce Survey.) Each of these categories has its own features and issues.
Figure 5: Supply Categories for ICT Jobs
Supply Category A: ICT Major Undergraduates from Non-fee levying (state) Institutes:
Most state universities now produce ICT Major undergraduates in multiple streams to cater the increasing demand. Some universities have multiple faculties offering parallel courses that are not too different in their learning outcomes. One state university offers as many as four ICT Major undergraduate courses under four faculties! Course contents are almost the same, only the entry qualifications vary. In the job market each of these courses are evaluated separately. It is not strange that students from two courses from the same university are offered different entry level salaries depending upon the recognition of degrees. These market conditions cannot be helped. Placing their course in a higher step of the career ladder is mostly the responsibility of the course directors and staff.
If we were to fully meet the increasing industry demand it is essential that state universities reorganize their course structures. Currently most courses are four years in duration while the six months long internship is done in the third year. What the industry demands is a shorter course — may be three years — with a one year internship in the final year. Six months is too short for a firm to train a student and absorb the best out of her. Again, a final year internship offers better way to absorb them more smoothly in to the cadre.
Supply Category B: ICT Major Undergraduates from Fee- levying (state and private) Institutes:
This is becoming an increasingly important category giving a tough competition to traditionally more established state universities. This sector includes state owned but fee-levying institutes such as SLIIT, NSBM and SLTC. They offer either UGC approved degree programs of their own or foreign degrees from universities mainly from USA, Europe and Australia. The same landscape is reflected in similar privately owned institutes. Then we have two Bachelor of IT degree courses offered by state universities but delivered by private institutes, According to Workforce Survey 2019 these sub sectors jointly produced more ICT Major graduates than the state institutions combined did by nearly 1:3 (5,791 against 2,121).
One strength of this category, compared to state sector is the institutes are by nature better prepared to adjust themselves following industry demands. They also attract urban students already developed their language skills. Still, just in case of state universities, some institutes must seriously think about reorganizing the course structures and updating the course content. That helps in mapping the course to a higher level so that the students can demand better salaries in the market.
Supply Category C: ICT Non-Major Undergraduates from Non-fee levying (state) Institutes:
What most state universities (and students) do not understand is there are tech positions even for non-major ICT students, provided they have an adequate exposure. In 2019 state universities produced 2,414 graduates with at least 50% of their course constituted of ICT subjects. How best to absorb them to tech positions? If they were to get a tech job, why train them in a non-major ICT program in the first place? These are complex questions the state universities must ponder seriously.
Supply Category D: ICT Non-Major Undergraduates from Fee levying (state and private) Institutes:
The same above issues reflect here too. Intensity, perhaps, is more as the number is higher. In 2019 institutes offering fee-levying courses produced 4,817 graduates with at least 50% of their course constituted of ICT subjects. Perhaps it’s time for these institutes to rethink about the composition of the courses. What are the objectives of students enrolling to such courses? Why not increase the Major-ICT course intakes to include these students too?
Supply Category E: Post-graduates in ICTs:
This important category, we often inadvertently ignore. Postgraduate qualifications among ICT workforce are rare. Only 10% are equipped with anything better than a basic degree. (Figure 6) ICT industry badly needs more competent and experienced professionals at senior levels to lead new initiatives to meet international standards. So it is imperative that quality post-graduate courses are locally available to train them. Currently the post graduate degrees receive less attention compared to undergraduate ones, probably because of low demand. More than the money, ICT professional too lack time to follow a post graduate course in a timely manner. This is an instance where all parties, higher education institutes, professionals and even the industry must compromise.
Figure 6: Profile of educational qualification of ICT workforce
This is only a quick and simplified snapshot. The real picture is more complex with hundreds, or may be thousands of students following ICT courses in overseas too.
Chanuka Wattegama chanuka@hotmail.com is a policy researcher who leads the Policy Division at Informational and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA). The opinions expressed not necessarily reflect those of any organization he is affiliated to.
