IRELAND is in danger of being wiped off the map as a major exporter of computer software unless the Government develops a strategic plan to deal with the growing skills shortage in the area, according to Professor Michael Ryan, head of DCU's school of computer applications.
Ireland is producing no more than 1,000 computer graduates each year while India, for example, which is attracting many of the leading international software companies, is producing more than 10,000 computer graduates annually.
"The Indian government has had a policy which has enabled them to take advantage of the opportunities, whereas here in Ireland we have had no such co-ordinated strategy," says Ryan. "India and China could develop their computer industries and wipe us off the map."
The recently-announced Government Action Plan on Skills introduces a bidding process into our education system by seeking to identify the most cost-effective way of providing an extra 1,000 graduates and 750 technicians each year.
Not surprisingly, the universities regard this as a slap in the face for their own endeavours in the area. "It undermines our work," says Professor Kevin Ryan, dean of infomatics and electronics at the University of Limerick. "Irish graduates are among the best in the world. For us the nightmare scenario is that the Government will decide to get cut-price graduates from sources outside the Irish third-level sector and that employers will discover that they are not of the same quality as Irish-trained graduates. Our work will be completely undermined."
It is felt that students need to be trained to cope with the rapidity of technological change rather then simply in the skills currently being used in industry. Within the university sector there are grave doubts that good quality computer education can be provided for less than it costs in Ireland.
"In Ireland it costs £4,000 a year to train a computer scientist," says Kevin Ryan. "British university costs are much higher. I would be amazed if they can get anyone to do as good a job as we do for less."
The expansion in computing and software has caught all the developed countries by surprise, says Michael Ryan. The United States is producing only one-fifth of its annual computer graduate requirement, he says. "The real tragedy is not that Ireland is now a victim of its own success but that unlike other countries we are actually turning away thousands of bright young people who want to study computers, but can't get places.
The computing skills shortage has reached such a pitch here that companies are beginning to recruit foreign nationals. By failing to produce more third-level computing places in Ireland we are failing to take advantage of the opportunities, says Michael Ryan of DCU.
The third-level computer sector regard the Government Action Plan on Skills as a panic rather than a strategic measure. "The key question is how many computer graduates should we be producing," he says. Nobody is addressing that issue. We need to address the person power planning issue in a sensible way and to get a clear idea of the shortages.
There is a very real fear that, unless we get our act together, Ireland will begin to lag behind internationally.
The software industry, he says, is like a pyramid with low-level jobs at the bottom. "The higher up you go the more you are depending on your ability to solve problems and develop new ideas and systems." This means that as well as producing graduates in large numbers we must also ensure that a significant amount of post-graduate research is taking place.
"We want to be as high up the pyramid as possible so that we don't have to compete at the bottom." Michael Ryan says that a number of companies, impressed with the quality of Irish research, have failed to locate here because of the low numbers of research degrees - around 50 a year - which we are producing.
ACCORDING job the DCU academic, the universities have been making the case for more computer graduates for years. Space, however, is a major factor - unless the Government allocates money to provide extra space for extra students, they will be unable to accommodate increased numbers. Some universities have put forward expansion proposals but these have yet to be taken up. The RTCs too are equally strapped for space and equipment. The quality issue apart, Michael Ryan is concerned that, if British institutions successfully tender to provide courses, Ireland may end up sending large numbers of young people across the water and thereby solve Britain's skills shortage and worsen the Irish situation.
The universities also fear that the IDA's programme for inward investment will be negatively affected by the tendering system.
University sources too are concerned about the fact that there is little interaction between the Departments of Enterprise and Employment and Education. "There is no mechanism whereby the ongoing needs of the industry and the IDA are dealt with by the Department of Education," says the source. The funding of education is regarded as social issue rather than an economic one. The role played by the third-level sector in the economic development of this country is ignored by the Department of Finance.
Meanwhile, computer "conversion" courses - the one-year diploma programmes for graduates in other disciplines - vary in quality and are of limited value to the industry in the long term, according to third-level sources. The real need is for more certificate, diploma and degree holders and for postgraduates.
