information technology fails to lure students

The Herald Sun, Jane Metlikovec, 25 September 2007; The Australian, Brendan O’Keefe, 26
September 2007

 

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) has released enrolment statistics for the end-of-year
VCE exams which begin in November. The VCAA has found that despite a national skills shortage, only 4804 students
will sit the IT applications VCE exam, compared to the 7856 students who sat the exam in 2004.

The Department of Education Science and Training’s Higher Education report shows that seven percent of students
began an IT course at a tertiary institution in 2001, whereas only three percent of students enrolled in IT courses last year.

Mathematics has also seen a drop in enrolments over the last few years, whereas business management, physical education and health and human development have all increased in enrolments.

Federal Vocational and Further Education Minister, Andrew Robb, believes that TAFE institutes are failing to meet the private sector’s needs and should be overhauled. Mr Robb also claimed that TAFE enrolments between 2001 and 2006 suffered a 13 percent drop.

A Monash University study has also found that enrolments at universities and TAFE institutes between 2002 and 2005
have fallen by 23.6 percent from 57,596 to 44,022.

Australian Computer Society Foundation president, John Ridge, believes that universities and TAFE institutes are ‘casting wider and lower nets’ in a bid to keep their classes full.

Mr Ridge believes that ‘the level of people entering IT is dropping’ due to universities lowering their entry scores for IT courses by ten points.

 

 

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