Ambitious IT and telecom universities of applied sciences, may you prosper!
Today is the last day to apply for the higher education courses starting in the fall of 2017. The courses have become an important part of the skills supply in both IT and telecom, but a general tightening is needed from both organizers, the industry and the authority itself to ensure good quality. And by all means, don't forget the fiber technicians!
In the decade or so that higher, state-funded vocational education and training has been in existence - first in the form of KETs and then UAS - it has become one of the most important sources of skills for the IT sector. The number and share of IT training places has grown steadily throughout the decade, but last year there was a sudden bump in the curve, despite unabated demand from the IT industry. The National Agency for Vocational Education and Training investigated the reasons for this and concluded that some of the computer/IT courses were of poor quality, both in terms of the number of applicants and the proportion who found the right type of job after completing the course.
Providing training in a field as complex and fast-moving as IT is certainly not a piece of cake, but even if we have a number of training providers who are currently doing an excellent job of this, it is crucial that not just some but all providers manage to deliver quality. From the industry's and companies' side, we must also dare to make proper demands and be prepared to seriously engage in the training by allocating time and resources, both to provide feedback on the training content and to offer LIA internships. In this time of constant time shortage, there is unfortunately a tendency to accept cooperation with training without a clear ambition to really contribute, and here we in the industry must actually keep our heads and think!
We must also make demands on the responsible authorities, both the government through the Ministry of Education and the Swedish Agency for Higher Vocational Education, so that they provide the right conditions for ambitious organizers to build up and maintain high educational quality. A step in the right direction is the bill the government presented last week, where it is proposed that education should as a rule be allowed to be conducted for six years or more (three or more "education starts" in yh-language) instead of four years (two starts) as now.
To show that we in the industry take quality issues seriously, IT&Telekomföretagen, through the IT Skills Council, has today submitted a letter to the Swedish Agency for Higher Vocational Education in which we highlight the ways in which companies in the industry want to contribute. In the letter, we also express that level 5 according to the SeQF qualification system should be the "standard" for computer/IT education.
A skill that has unfortunately been treated poorly since the start of the vocational college (or, if you like, ever since Televerket's telecommunications school in Kalmar was closed down in the 1990s) concerns those who work in the field to practically build the networks we are all so dependent on. This now requires a substantial supply of solid skills in the form of fiber welders, opto-technicians, fiber installers and city network engineers, especially as most of the old "Televerket guys" are now retiring. Also in this matter, we have, together with four of the leading Swedish infrastructure companies, submitted a letter to the Yh-myndigheten, where we highlight the need for fiber technicians. With the hope that the notch in the curve will go down in history as a temporary flattening, and that the vocational college will to an even greater extent become the important resource to help meet the IT and telecom sector's great skills needs it can and must be!