An Absolute Crisis – Information Technology in Education

It’s been some 5 years since a small group of concerned citizens produced the Position Paper on the crisis in IT teaching (now more commonly called Digital Technologies). And yet the issues are still very much the same if not worse!

The Australian Computer Society (ACS) is also sounding the alarm, as can be seen by these comments in April 2022 from Dr Nick Tate, the ACS President, who emphasised that building the nation’s digital skills must be a priority for whoever forms government: 
“Our annual Digital Pulse survey forecasts an annual shortfall of 60,000 IT workers and that gap is only going to widen as our need for cybersecurity specialists and other technology professionals increases. Addressing this shortfall is necessary to ensure Australia’s continuing security and prosperity which is why our Election Platform last month focused on boosting the supply of digitally skilled workers across the nation, including the regions.”

We are also seeing a serious decline in students studying Mathematics in Senior High School, which also exacerbates the issue with the lack of students studying Digital Technologies.

The approaches we put forward in the Position Paper below still seem for the most part very relevant:

Comments and feedback most welcome.