On the Australian Technologies Curriculum

Bamn. There we have it. The Australian Technologies Curriculum has been officially approved by the Commonwealth Minister for Education. This Foundation – Year 10 curriculum contains two subjects: a) Design and Technologies and b) Digital Technologies. It’s fair to say that it is the second subject that has most piqued the tech industries’ interest due to the inclusion of coding/programming (visual programming in year 5-6 and general coding languages in years 7-8).

The Minister’s announcement also touches on the previously announced $12million STEM fund that will go to:

• the development of innovative mathematics curriculum resources ($7.4m) – “The Mathematics by Inquiry project will produce a suite of innovative, high quality mathematics teaching and learning resources” (LINK)
• supporting the introduction of computer coding across different year levels ($3.5m) -not too many details on this one – sounds like it will be an online resources collection.
• establishing a P-TECH-style school pilot site ($500,000) – an industry/govt collaboration based on the IBM/City of New York school. These will be based in Geelong and Ballarat. The program is administered by Skilling Australia Foundation (LINK)
• funding summer schools for STEM students from underrepresented groups. ($?600,000) – Previous press releases mentioned a focus on Indigenous Australia and females in technology, but not too many details since then.

My thoughts:

This is pretty big stuff. It was exactly a year ago that the curriculum review suggested that the introduction of technology subjects would crowd and complicate the Australian curriculum and that coding should be introduced as part of an elective from year 9 onwards. This time last year there was a very real chance that technology in general, and coding in particular, would be integrated as part of other subjects – or, left up to the interests of individual schools/teachers to introduce.

Given the implications of implementing an Australia wide curriculum change – the $12million STEM funding is starting to look a little out of place. At the time it looked like a consolation prize for an education system that was going to miss out on a technology focus. Now that the game has changed – this fund appears a little piece meal – four interesting, but not exactly game changing or scalable initiatives.

For a government aiming to position Australia for the 21st century – the introduction of this curriculum is a good start. The responsibility is now passed to the State Governments to look at the extent to which it will be adopted and the speed/quality of implementation.

On the growth of ICT Jobs in Australia

An interesting stat emerged in a news a few weeks ago: according to SEEK.com, the online job platform, tech job advertisements made up the largest category of new jobs posted in 2014. At 10.7% this category beat out Trades and Services (7.7%) and Healthcare and Medical (7.4%). From Jan 2014 to Jan 2015 – the number of tech job advertisements grew by 14%.

The drivers of this change appear to be digital transformation and analytics/intelligence. This means companies moving their infrastructure to the cloud and accommodating a mobile-first world. It also means restructuring existing processes so that you can pull data from them and then do something with that data (probably the integration of analytics software).

This is interesting news – largely because it uses SEEK data. For years, critics have commented that the Australian Bureau of Statistics mis-represents tech jobs (e.g. how do you categorise an HR person working at a tech company or a techie working in an infrastructure firm?). But this data is user generated and the ads are written to be found by the largest number of techies possible.

[Source: ICT leads growth in Aussie jobs market, ARN, Feb 2015]

On the learn-to-code movement in 2015

Last December, Ryan Seashore, CEO and founder of CodeNow, put up his thoughts on the learn-to-code movement – where its at and where it needs to be. I like this article for several reasons. First, it attempts to put a time line around the host of initiatives – making it very clear how recent most of them are. Second, it adds structure to the movement and distinguishes between the different players.

Here’s how Seashore broke them down:

Awareness: the purpose of these orgs is to raise awareness of the need for increased computer science/coding education. The main player here is Code.org, with Made with Code also referenced. Success is measured in terms of publicity, social media and uptake of campaigns such as Hour of Code and Computer Science Education Week. [JW note: I’m pretty sure Code.org would argue that, through their teacher support materials, they moving well down the chain into the exposure and immersion categories, but in general, they play an important role in raising awareness of this issue]

Exposure: main goal of these orgs is to give students a taste of coding as a discipline. The idea is to give students exposure so they can then decide if its an area of interest they might want to pursue in college. Players: CodeNow, Black Girls Code, CoderDojo, Technovation, Rails Girls etc. Success is measured by the number and diversity of students that attend the programs.

Immersion: a subset of the exposure groups – here the aim is to bridge the gap between the first 5-30 hours and full blown curriculum. Programs include SMASH, Girls Who Code, TEALS, ScriptED, UrbanTXT. Once again, success is measured by number and diversity of attendees.

Vocational: generally for-profit. Think General Assembly, Dev Bootcamp, Hack Bright Academy etc. These guys have grown fast and can offer specialisations like UI design, front end coding, app creation, data science etc.

Online: these are online courses, often free, from CodeAcademy, Khan Academy, CodeSchool and MOOCs facilitated through Coursera and Udacity. These can range from hour long tutorials through to 8-12 week courses. Here Seashore comments on the frequently quoted 5% completion rate and the huge amount of self-discipline needed to actually finish the courses.

The ‘where to from here’ section of Seashore’s article touched on a few things: a) the creation of a national association to coordinate the linkages between all the above organisations – to help them move up the education ladder, b) setting public goals for education, c) pushing the public to challenge the government to make coding mandatory in schools, and d) pushing tech companies to do more than just donate money – they can play an active role in educating students and taking interns.

My thoughts:

• Not-for-profits: Seashore starts his article saying that not-for-profits are stepping into this space because the tech industry has diversity issues and sectors of society (women, African American, Hispanic) are not being included in this incredibly progressive, well paying industry sector. This is true for Australia as well – the tech sector has low representation from women, Indigenous Australians and other groups. However our base uptake is so low that, in general, Australians as a whole are missing out on this opportunity. Not-for-profits are stepping in, not for diversity reasons, but because they can move faster (and arguably have less responsibility) than official government education. Very few of the organisations above have a physical presence in Australia – which relegates them all to the ‘self driven’ online category.
• Educational progression: Seashore’s article warns of offering false hopes. Imagine for example that enthusiastic volunteers (from organisations or companies) come into a school, run an amazing workshop on coding, generate a healthy amount of interest in technology but then leave an under supported teacher to figure out the next steps. It would make sense for each outreach activity to have a ‘next steps’ component to their activities.
• Localisation: in Australia we are starting to see a few organisations emerge in for-profit category of tech education – General Assembly, CoderFactory and Code Rangers (relatively new) are some that come to mind. Code Rangers is interesting because it is playing in the traditionally not-for-profit space of youth education but is tapping the structured, and paid, after school networks. Essentially providing a quality alternative to after school care for young students.

On Camp/Interactive (C/I) (Bronx, USA)

C/I (Camp/Interactive) is a Bronx based tech education program focused on supporting high-school students from underserved backgrounds. Its mission is “inspire and equip underserved students with the skills in computing, leadership, and professionalism needed to thrive in the Internet economy and beyond“. Starting in 2001 as a four week summer program (two weeks outdoor leadership training, two weeks intensive technology training) the program expanded in 2006 with a Bronx based learning centre and later added internships.

The program has three main components (from C/I website):

• Code/Interactive: students attend computer science education sessions at least twice a week at their schools with a C/I Teacher to work on self-directed computer science education modules in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Participating schools gain a robust curriculum, technology, teaching materials, access to other program elements (summits, camps and internships). [C/I’s website shows it is working with roughly 12 schools in the Bronx area.]
• Camp/Interactive: Young Entrepreneur Summits give C/I’s top students an opportunity to develop their technology skills in a unique environment. Each Y.E.S. program hosts panels of minority tech entrepreneurs to share their expertise with C/I students, equipping them with the tech and leadership skills needed to be successful in today’s fastest growing industry.
• Careers/Interactive: Successful students from C/I’s year-long programs apply for paid summer internships at top tech companies. Interns utilise their coding, prototyping, and leadership skills to gain hands-on work experience and training for a future career. Past internship hosts include GroupMe, RetailMeNot, GILT, AirBnB, Business Insider, The New York Times, FourSquare, General Assembly, CK-12, and Gust.

C/I lists its results as:

• Increase in college attendance rates: C/I students are five times as likely as their peers to go to college
• Break the poverty cycle: C/I provides graduates with skills that can double their household income
• Opportunities to join the workforce: 60% of C/I interns are offered full time employment

My thoughts:

There are many things I like about what I’m reading. The first is thoughtful links between the program elements. Offering in-school resources, coupled with more intensive camps/office visits for keen students and ending with the opportunity of a paid internship. I like that the program uses its own year long education program as a filter for companies looking to support interns – only students that complete the years worth of extra curricular study are offered internship positions. This both recognises/ensures the quality of the teaching, but also addresses employer side concerns about the quality/motivation of the students they are taking in. I imagine that if employers were also participating as mentors and hosting office visits then they would also have a chance to meet the students before taking them onboard as interns.

I also like that the program has an official signup process for schools. In Australia we face a challenge that often programs are introduced by a single motivated teacher, and are reliant on that one teachers’ passion and time to keep the program running. Ideally these programs would be taken in by the school and supported at the highest level – then actively promoted to teachers and parents alike as something the school is doing to improve its educational capacity. This is particularly important in the computer science realm where content moves fast, students learn fast and finding skilled educators can be tricky.

Finally, I like the program structure. It has clear opportunities to engage as volunteers, participants and financial sponsors. It appears measurable and it looks possible to track outcomes due to the high engagement with the students involved.

On Malcolm Turnbull and Tech Education

Last month, the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull, Minister for Communications and hero of the tech world, spoke at what looks like a Westpac associated event. The topic: “The Importance of Tech Education in Our Schools” (24 October, 2014).

In most regards the speech was on-point. It addressed:

• The Digital Technologies curriculum review – stating that the review’s intent was to simplify Australia’s curriculum and that coding could emerge through another strand, such as mathematics. This incorporation of coding into the mathematics curriculum was mentioned three times in the speech. Turnbull also mentioned the need to distinguish between the recommendations of Phil Callil, the subject matter expert, and the review as a whole. This was to remind people that Callil determined that key ICT skills taught as part of the digital technologies syllabus, such as coding and computational thinking, should be taught from Foundation to Year 10.
• The role of technology in changing our economy – the need to create new jobs as old jobs disappear and the need for Australia to remain internationally competitive. Particularly if Australia wishes to remain a high cost centre with a strong social support network. He referenced Dr Ian Chubb’s recognition that about half of all US economic growth in the last 50 years came from scientific and technological advances.
• The difference between passively consuming technology and actively making it – quote:

“…Instead of teaching students how to be passive consumers of technology…, our educators should be teaching students how to create, how to code.”

• ICT education participation rates – commencements in tertiary ICT courses have also fallen sharply, with a 53 per cent decline between 2001 and 2011, while completions declined by 58 per cent over the same period. And that while female participation in the workforce is almost 50%, female participation in STEM careers sits at 25%.

Mr Turnbull said that we need to ensure that:

• We are equipping students with the skills for employment in an increasingly competitive globalised economy
• We are improving the pathways for students to study IT from Foundation through to secondary school and onto university
• There is an increase in the percentage of school-aged girls participating in ICT and women employed in the ICT sector
• Teachers are supported to undertake professional learning in key areas of IT competency.

The speech referenced two ideas:

• First, the $500,000 set aside for the Geelong based P-Tech. Modelled on IBM’s work in the US – this P-Tech would increase industry engagement in the school system
• Second, we closely monitor the impact of the UK introducing a Digital Technologies curriculum.

My thoughts:

Most of the speech’s content is exactly what people are looking for. Recognition that technology will play an increasingly important role in our future, that jobs are changing and the economy needs to change with it. One thing that stood out was the constant referencing of mathematics as the solution to embedding logic and computational thinking in the K-6 curriculum. Not sure if everyone will agree that’s the solution… but if it is going to live anywhere under the current structure that’s not a terrible place. It was interesting to see Turnbull specifically name-check the Canberra based Australian Mathematics Trust (see quote below).

The speech was a little light on solutions. The current initiatives put forward by the Commonwealth Government include: a) review the curriculum, b) $3.5 million to embed ‘coding across the curriculum’ and c) the P-Tech. It’s tough to see how these initiatives will have the desired effect – especially given the emphasis put on the incredible pace that technology is influencing the world.

Full quote on Australian Mathematics Trust:

Teaching students how to code – to use computers to create rather than just consume – from Foundation through to Year 8 could be appropriately incorporated into the mathematics syllabus, for example.

A leader in this area is the Australian Mathematics Trust based in Canberra. I commend you to the work they are doing in informatics, a mathematics discipline, where students learn the basic algorithms, data structures and computational techniques that underlie information and communication, and demonstrate their learning through computer programming tasks.

On why we must inspire children to study technology

As part of their ongoing series on innovation, General Electric, together with The Economist Group, interviewed Singapore based technologist/educator Ayesha Khanna for her thoughts on why we must inspire children to study technology. Aysha believes that if Australia does not invest in STEM subjects then it will lose its competitive edge. This is based on the idea that future industries are being transformed and disrupted by technology and students will need both the technical skills and the creative inspiration to remain at the core of these changes.

Main points are:

• Silo-ed education: we currently teach education in silos – each subject is taught in isolation when, in the real world, there is massive crossover. The interview references examples of how people need design skills and basic engineering to create prototypes, then research skills to test products etc. This concept was raised recently as part of the Commonwealth Government review into the curriculum – how could we ensure teachers are skilled in their ability to use (for example) robotics to teach applied maths or science as a means to teach art (colour matching).
• Creativity: Aysha also raises the oft discussed concept of STEAM – adding Arts to the standard Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics grouping. The Arts element ensures that students don’t disappear down a technical rabbit hole. That they remain creative, open, inquisitive, exploratory – that the technical concepts they are developing are applied to real life situations. This is where the entrepreneurship element of digital literacy lives.

How to address the issue:

• Expose children to real life examples: whether its through careers fairs, office tours or mini-internships – students need to see a ‘day in the life’ of real careers. This helps ground the diversity and complexity of roles available to them through STEM (STEAM?) education fields.
• Ensure active use of technology: Aysha touches on the idea of active vs passive use of technology – something I have previously referred to as ‘making’ vs ‘using’ tech. Her thoughts are that technology is a wonderful thing as long as students are ‘active’ users – instead of using iPads for games/movies etc – load them full of apps that teach coding, drawing or are used for Khan Academy lessons.
• Gender imbalances: gender in STEM was also referenced. That there is still the latent belief that boys are more suited to these careers than girls. This seems to be a generational belief that is being passed down to young girls by their parents. There is no evidence to suggest that girls are any less competent than boys at what they do. Aysha’s recommendation is that parents/teachers just need to let go – allow girls to find their own ways of making technology instead of trying to enforce an history approach (the reference here is to allow girls to put tiaras on robots if they wish – I’m hesitant to mention it as that alone sounds pretty gendered to me).

This was a short article – but I thought it was worth publishing because a) it showed that companies like General Electric see STEM education as essential for Australia’s future, b) it added the concept of creativity to the standard discussion on STEM and c) it rephrased the ‘making’ vs ‘using’ discussion on technology as ‘active’ and ‘passive’.

On the Australian Government’s $3.5m coding in schools announcement

The Australian Government’s curriculum review recently suggested that technologies subjects were best placed as an elective for students in Year 9 and above. A day later the same government announced a $12 million fund to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects in primary and secondary schools. Of particular note is the second item – a specific $3.5m allocation to introduce coding across different year levels in Australian schools.

The $12 million is broken down like this:

• $7.4m to develop and implement Mathematics by inquiry
• $3.5m towards introduction to computer coding across the curriculum
• $0.5m towards establishing a P-TECH styled education facility
• $0.6m to extend national science and mathematics summer schools to include more girls, disadvantaged and Indigenous school students, including those from regional and remote areas.

This funding is a subset of a larger $400m project called the the Industry, Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda (the Agenda). Under this Agenda, the Government has four key ambitions, including:

1. a lower cost, business friendly environment with less regulation, lower taxes and more competitive markets;
2. a more skilled labour force;
3. better economic infrastructure; and
4. industry policy that fosters innovation and entrepreneurship.

The $3.5m coding in schools funding description currently reads:

Building on these maths education programmes, the Government will provide a further $3.5 million to encourage the introduction of computer coding across different year levels in Australian schools. ‘Coding across the curriculum’ will contribute to addressing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry feedback which consistently emphasises a looming acute shortage of computer programming skills. It is anticipated that a consortia of organisations with appropriate professional capacity and technical expertise will be contracted through tender processes to deliver these programmes.

My thoughts:

Need more information. The $12m funding announcement came a day after the Government released its review effectively suggesting that specific tech subjects are mainly relevant for students Years 9 and above. The review also suggested that computer science learning objectives were best delivered when folded into other subjects. This announcement of a specific fund for coding ‘across different year levels’ doesn’t align with the curriculum announcement. Another thing I’m not clear on is the duration – $3.5m per annum is very different to $3.5 over four years.

Coding in schools is currently a niche interest – mainly existing as weekend, lunchtime or after school programs outside the school structure. This helps retain their independence and keeps the administration lean. Organisations like Code Club have just started expanding – these organisations are powered by international resources, enthusiastic local volunteers/teachers and, where available, private sector funding. CoderDojo operates in the same area but has more of an industry mentorship/weekend activity approach.

I’m keen to know if the allocated funding is intended to scale existing extra curricular activities or whether it is intended for something embedded in the school structure.

On the Australian Government’s Review of the Digital Technologies Curriculum

The Australian Government recently announced its review of the Australian Curriculum. Suffice to say the technology community was not impressed. The review suggested that the proposed Technologies curriculum was best suited as an elective for students in years 9 and above. This goes against the very things that made the original draft attractive – that it was compulsory from Foundation to Year 10 and that it separated out the ‘using’ of technology from the ‘making’ of technology.

The review had a number of recommendations:

• The Technologies learning area should be introduced from Year 9 – not Foundation- Year 10 as previously suggested
• The two Technologies strands of Design and Technology (“using tech”) and Digital Technologies (“making things with tech/computational thinking”) should be merged – which is not dissimilar to the current structure and avoids a direct focus on programming/coding
• The terminology of the curriculum needs consistency and terms/achievement levels need clear definition – never a bad idea

Additional recommendations from the subject expert include:

• Integrate design and technologies into other subjects in primary years and then commence the specific subjects in lower secondary classes (year 9)
• IF design and technologies is taught in F-8 then teachers would need serious support and professional development
• That additional training is provided for secondary school teachers to support the curriculum

The reasons given in the review are as follows:

• There is no international consensus on what a technologies curriculum should include. Apart from the US and UK, few other countries are making technology a compulsory subject and the review outlines the confusing way that technology has been integrated into global curriculums (as part of science, a VET subject, a coding subject etc)
• The primary school curriculum is overcrowded and removing Technologies frees up time to teach other subjects – avoiding the ‘inch deep and a mile wide’ scenario
• Concern over the structure of the subject – that the separation of ‘technologies’ (designed to emphasise ‘making’) from the ‘general ICT capability’ (designed to emphasise ‘using’) was confusing
• The need for teacher professional development in order to pull this off – that teachers were not accustomed to the complex language proposed in the Technologies curriculum and would need support

The subject specialist reviewing the curriculum raised a number of concerns:

• There was little involvement from primary teachers in designing the Digital Technologies curriculum
• The name of the ‘digital technologies’ was not suitable and was not recognised by industry
• Language used in the curriculum achievement standards for Years F-8  is beyond many teachers without a specialist background.
• The writing of the curriculum is pitched at too high a level for primary and secondary teachers.
• The reviewer also questioned whether “Technologies”, as a subject, is the natural home for the technology subject matter OR should it be pervasive across all subjects?

My thoughts:
The above recommendations seem to undermine the purpose of a national Technologies curriculum. The intent of the curriculum update was the ensure that Australian students were gaining contemporary skills that would put both the students and the country in a good position in the next 15-20 years. It is natural that this is a difficult task with few global case studies – that’s what happens if you want to stay at the forefront of education. It is also natural that teachers should have support to implement these changes. I would argue that teachers need support even without these changes as currently 60% of teachers handling Years 7-10 and 48% of Year 11-12 have no formal ICT qualification.

I’m not sure about the idea of integrating Technology across other strands. I imagine this means that during an art class, students would use some form of digital media, or maybe they are asked to create an iBook for a history presentation. I have a feeling this will lead to a situation where teachers (naturally) support concepts they are already familiar with – what teacher, off their own bat, would use robotics as a method of teaching geometry when you can use more established traditional methods?

In saying this – arguably nothing has changed. The national curriculum has been sitting in draft format for almost a year and was reliant on State Government to support to roll out at a local level. The report mentions that one jurisdiction already had a good existing course and had no plans to replace its current content.

The report can be found here: Review of the Australian Curriculum, Final Report (October, 2014) – the Technologies section begins on page 208

On Telstra Foundation’s support for Code Club Australia

The Telstra Foundation recently announced its financial support ($532,000) for Code Club Australia. This is part of the Foundation’s larger $2.4million package it has allocated to a number of technology/digital lifestyle initiatives including anti-cyber bullying, disability inclusiveness, online mental health and its flagship partnerships with the Indigenous Digital Excellence (IDX) team and the eSmart Libraries project. All up the Foundation has now invested some $18million in digital lifestyle initiatives.

From the press release:

(This funding will be used) to help achieve the Code Club Australia’s mission to give every child in the country the chance to learn code through an accelerated “train the trainer” program targeting 500 teachers and prioritising schools in low socio-economic areas. While teaching kids to code now may help solve a future skills shortage, coding also builds kids problem-solving abilities, digital confidence and helps kids understand the world around them.

My thoughts:
Nice work Telstra! The global trend we’re seeing is that the tech sector, and particularly student education, is moving faster than government education providers. State (and national) level curriculums take years to compile, process and distribute – students need this type of education now. The private sector, together with programs like CodeClub, Code.org, CodeAcademy and CoderDojo, is helping fill this space while governments work out if, how and when to incorporate this content into a formalised curriculum.

It’s interesting to note that both Code Club and Coder Dojo generally operate outside school hours. For the most part they are seen as extra curricular activities. This is probably the most effective place for these programs to start as it means they can operate with more independence than if they were operating inside class time. It also means that the students that do attend are the ones that elect to be there. This addresses concerns that these programs are pushing a computer science agenda onto students that may not be interested. If you’re looking for a simple differentiator (correct me if I’m wrong) – in Australia, Code Clubs act as after school programs run by teachers while Coder Dojos tend to run out of community centres (libraries) by volunteers (on weekends or whenever is convenient).

Where is this headed: In the USA, Code.org also started out as an extra curricular activity and is now making a heavy push to develop teaching materials and embed itself into the actual school agenda. Code.org recently announced its Code Studio that provides lesson plans and teacher support dashboards for classrooms across the full K-12 spectrum.

A final comment – I was recently talking with a teacher about the impact these programs are having at their school. They raised the point that while these programs are great (well resourced, free, scalable) – they also don’t appeal to every learning style. Online, computer based learning has a heavy preference to Visual learners. This teacher wanted to balance their program to include elements attractive to Auditory and Kinesthetic learners as well. This is where the programming learned through Code Club can tie in nicely to things like RoboCup Jnr and FiRST Lego League (all founded on Scratch, MIT’s visual programming language).

If you’re after more info – here’s a more detailed video with Peter Argent (starts around 4m20s, length: 00:28”17’)

On Attitudes to ICT Careers and Study Among 13-19 Year Olds

As a state, Victoria has been hit pretty hard by the Australia wide decline in ICT enrolments. Between 2002 (peak) and 2012 (trough) Victoria experienced a drop of over 10,000 students in tertiary computer science related degrees. This compares to a decline of 5,600 in NSW and 8,700 in Qld. Percentage wise we are talking declines of 38% (Victoria), 49% (Queensland) and 28% (NSW). Its no wonder that the Victorian Government (Department of State Development, Business and Innovation) has commissioned four reports (2004, 2007, 2009, 2012) investigating career choice and study options among young people. Here are some of the findings, paying attention to noticeable changes from 2009-2012:

Some things don’t change:

• The percentage of students that studied ICT in year 9 or above (remained at 42%)
• Awareness of the term ICT (sits at 40%) – although students had trouble defining what it meant
• Understanding that ICT had career opportunities (67%)
• Interest in studying ICT at a tertiary level (when asked) remains at 41%
• Interest in pursuing a career in ICT (when asked) remains at 46%

Some things do:

• Decline: student interest in working in the ICT sector compared to other sectors (from 35% to 24%)
• Decline: interest in studying ICT (when compared with other courses) from 37% down to 28%
• Increase: students believe they have a better understanding of ICT as a career choice (51% in 2009, 56% in 2012)
• Increase: students believe ICT is recession proof (10% in 2009, 30% in 2012)
• Increase: students thought that delivery of ICT in schools has improved (64% in 2009, to 79% in 2012)

What students are looking for:

• a job they can excel in (83%)
• a job that is in line with their areas of interest (82%)
• a job they’re proud of (78%)
• a secure job (77%)
• a chance to earn good money (75%)
• Summary: students are looking for a job that they will enjoy for many years, one that provides the lifestyle they want to have, is not stressful, one where they are not stuck indoors and behind a desk all day and one that offers a good work/life balance

Influencers:

• Parents (85%) remain the key influencer for career choices and guidance
• People that work in the industry (83%)
• Teachers (71%)
• Work experience in the area (71%)
• Other family members (72%)
• Institution open days/careers fairs (72%)
• Friends and peers (56%) play less of a role, but still a greater role than generic internet sources, media and social media

Perceptions of ICT:

• Students still see ICT as monotonous and desk bound (58% agree)
• Low human interaction (44% agree)
• Geeky and nerdy (30% agree) – these perceptions are formed from teachers that teach the subject, people they know in the industry and impressions they receive from TV. While students are not anti-geek, they don’t necessarily identify with that image.

Positioning: the report then looks at what messages resonate with the ambitions of students in different age category:

• Years 7-8: ICT should be a positive school experience, not tied to career choices but role modelled by adults and fun to engage in
• Years 9-10: at this age, messaging should directly address and alleviate misconceptions about ICT and promote ICT as a gateway to future career choices
• Years 11-12: students need to know the broader skills sets required of tertiary level ICT, outside of the technical expertise – students need reassurance that they are capable of being able to study at a higher level.

Communications and Information:

• Ensure that outward facing communications resonate with students – this includes both rationally (i.e. salary, career options, in demand industry etc) and emotionally (fun career, stay abreast of tech trends, fulfilling career)
• Clarify misconceptions: ICT does not need to be desk bound, it has group work, it is social, it is global etc
• Convey the diversity of available careers: ideally in ‘day in the life’ style promotions
• Disseminate information via school networks (careers advisors, teachers and parents)
• Work on gaining mainstream multimedia attention for campaigns

The role of industry:

• The challenge with this issue is representing diversity of career choice in a targeted fashion that meets the diverse interests of students at different age levels. Industry can play a greater role in schools and participating in careers expos.

Industry’s own actions will have a significant impact on addressing educational and broader workforce issues over time, and as such, they along with schools, education providers, and the Government, must continue to take joint responsibility and ownership for attracting people to the industry to achieve positive outcomes for the sector as a whole