[LINK] Minister for Communications Launched Australia's Digital Pulse

[Tom Worthington]

Greetings from the National Press Club in Canberra, where Malcolm 
Turnbull, Minister for Communications, is speaking at the launch of 
"Australia's Digital Pulse". This eighty page report was prepared for 
the Australian Computer Society (ACS) by Deloitte: 
http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/au/Documents/Economics/deloitte-au-economics-australias-digital-pulse-160614.pdf

Brenda Ainslie, ACS President, said we need a deeper pool of ICT 
professionals and a focus on STEM skills in classrooms.

The report was prepared by Dr Ric Simes and John O’Mahony at Deloitte 
Access Economics. As well as the full report the key findings are available.

One point made by the authors is that while ICT is important to the 
economy and there are plenty of ICT jobs, the enrollments in ICT at 
Australian universities is declining. Australia is now importing many 
more ICT professionals than it is graduating at its own universities. 
The mining sector diverted students from ICT to other industries. Also 
the perception is that ICT degrees are for geeks, not cool digital 
business people. Also the current boom in the ICT industry is not as 
visible as the mining boom.

The authors also warned of a digital divide at schools, with a few who 
are literate and many who are not. Computer studies at Australian 
schools are also declining.  A national curriculum of digital 
technologies is being introduced but I notice that NSW appears not to be 
prompt to implement it (a topic for a future ACS e-Learning Special 
Interest Group in Canberra).

The Minister said he was excited by the digital revolution, including 
the additional hotel rooms being provided in Sydney without any new 
buildings, due to Internet booking. The minister urged Australia to 
embrace the volatility due to the Internet. Perhaps Australian 
government agents will use digital currency to buy off people smugglers 
in the Arafura Sea ;-)

More seriously, the Minister asked why female participation in the ICT 
industry is decreasing.He suggested joking that some culture change to 
the stereotypical pizza eating caffeine drinking male computer nerd.

I did a quick search of the report and found that "Massive Open Online 
Course" (MOOC) gets a mention, but no other forms of open access to 
education.

http://blog.tomw.net.au/2015/06/australias-digital-pulse.html



-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
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Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/