By Dan Ilett, 22 July 2005 12:20
NEWS
The government has dodged questions about the adoption of Indian IT education schemes in the UK.
In parliament yesterday Derek Wyatt MP, chairman of the All Party Internet Group, asked the Minister of State for Trade and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office if the UK is able to mimic India's training, which he claims has created more MBA graduates and individuals with IT qualifications than other countries.
According to Hansard, Wyatt said: "India has the largest number of graduates and postgraduates in computer science and the UK has more than 100,000 vacancies. We are fast-forwarding entry visas for people from India to take jobs in this country. Is there any way that we can copy and borrow India's system for training its computer scientists so that we can employ our own people?"
The Minister, Ian Pearson, replied that the government wants to create more IT jobs in the UK, but carefully sidestepped the question: "The important thing is to recognise the strengths in IT training in both the UK and India. Recently, there has been inward investment from Indian companies such as Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services, which are all in the ICT sector. We want that to continue to grow and we want skilled, high-quality jobs in the UK. My [honourable] friend has a point about the number of high-quality, skilled Indians being trained in that country at present."
Wyatt told silicon he is due to fly to India in September to learn more about IT training schemes there.
Last week, research company Deloitte released a report claiming the UK could become a world leader in technology if more money was invested in research and development, provided more practical education was given to young people.
Comments
There are 8 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Don't be fooled! Even if every British citizen had these advanced credentials (and many are equal or better than the Indians), that would not get them hired, judging from what happened in the States. There, the influx of cheaper Indian workers resulted in America's best and brightest being shown the door, often forced to train their Indian replacements. Americans with advanced degrees and credentials had to move back in with their parents, sell pretzels in malls, and stock grocery shelves to survive. Meanwhile, Indian body shops gained control of the hiring process and became the gatekeepers to US jobs. American youth watched and learned, and are turning away from computer training in droves as a result - they see that an American can't earn a living in technology no matter what training and degrees he has. Don't let this happen to the UK.
2. anonymous
Do these people ever talk to ordinary people about what's going on in the IT industry.
I know many skilled and experienced people who can't get jobs because of age discrimination. I know several youngster who feel that there is no point in doing IT related courses because in their words "Everyone is doing IT these days".
Yet we still hear companies banging on about a skills shortage when in fact all thay want to do is exploit ecomonic conditions in India to get staff on the cheap. These people are destroying the UK industry and fooling the government into the bargain.
3. Karen Challinor
Again there is no skills shortage, companies don't hire people over a certain age and they refuse to invest in training their own staff once they pass a certain age too. Especially since all this nice cheap labour is available from India
4. anonymous
So, having an MBA and/or a degree in IT means you can do the job! On all the projects I've worked on over the past 10 years where consultancies are also on-site; the vast majority of consultancy staff are under 30; either straight from university, or have a mximum of 3 years IT "experience"! I use the quotes deliberately, as I fail to see how anyone with less than 5 years hands-on experience can be classed as skilled. The client companies are therefore paying for trainees to learn on the job.
5. Garry
Why oh why all this fuss over degrees?
I run an IT training company and have numerous students here who have degrees and no work.
We specialize in Microsoft accreditation and once they get this the job offers rush in!!!
On another point WHY are we bringing in foreigners with these degrees? WHY don’t we just get our own people qualified?
As far as I know we do not have a full 100% work-force. I am sure some of the people out of work would be only too glad to be re-trained to gain employment.
6. anonymous
If there is a shortage of 100,000 IT personnel, why do they not employ experienced IT people over the age of 45? Thousand are looking for work in this country!
7. Ian Livermore
We are being descriminated against by our own government< again! They have forgoten who put them into power and there function as an MP. They are there to serve and support there constituents not India or Pakistan.
Lets all strike, march write and complain like the French do so well for ourselves before it is too late.
We are still the envy of the World and suprisingly that even includes Europe lets give the MP's a Lesson and sack them!
8. anonymous
Experience is the key not MBA or even industry exams such as MCSE.
I have worked on several projects where Indian workers are involved and found the productivity from them is no better than anyone else. They profess to work 12 hour days from 9am to 9pm. However there culture is such that they spend 4 hours or more doing stuff that is non work related like reading Hotmail emails etc. So 12 - 4 is 8 hours.
I have seen projects I have worked on moved to India for cost reasons. They have failed to deliver anything extra in the 4 years since moving it than in the 2 years we spent. So where is the saving there?
And the education lets face it I could teach a parrot to pass the MBA in India because that is how they are taught and how they learn "parrot-fashion". There is no adaptation to scenarios etc..
But let's not put this just on the Indians. I have interviewed Australians, Italians, British and Americans in my career all who have MCSE qualification coming out there ears. Yet sit them down in front of a PC and ask them to develop 2 .Net Windows in 1 hour to simply read and insert data into a table and they all failed.
In conclusion there are a lot of muppets out there. And importing more will not help the situation.