Students shun IT courses as technology renders formal training ‘obsolete’

Australia will need one million extra workers with digital skills within three years, a new report warns.

The Digital Skills Organisation warns that IT training courses aren’t keeping up with technological changes.

Out-of-date training courses in digital skills, cyber security and computing are failing to keep up with real-world leaps in technology, a government agency warns in a new report.

The Digital Skills Organisation (DSO), funded by the federal government, says Australia will need one million extra workers with digital skills within three years.

But the education and training system is failing to keep up with technological breakthroughs in information technology (IT), it states in a report released on Monday.

“Learners are not being taught the skills that industry demand,’’ the report states.

“The training system is not responsive and agile enough to keep pace with the rate of change.’’

The report cites a survey of more than 200,000 vocational education and training (VET) course graduates last year, which found that IT courses have the poorest level of workplace relevance.

Half the graduates who completed a vocational course in IT, through a Technical and Further Education (TAFE) or private training college in 2021, complained that the skills they were taught were not relevant to their current job.

Only one in three graduates felt the training had improved their digital skills, and just one in 10 worked in an occupation aligned to their training.

“ … employers are not valuing the people coming through the VET system relative to other training pathways,’’ the report states.

“The training system isn’t flexible enough to quickly adjust to what industries need.’’

The report blames the regulation of VET courses for some of the “challenges’’.

“These include being too rigid, continuing with outdated qualifications, and varying quality because competencies aren’t applied consistently,’’ it states.

“In the context of digital skills, these limitations are especially problematic.’’

The DSO says Australia needs more teachers and trainers capable of delivering training in digital skills across different qualifications.

“Every person in the workforce now needs to have digital skills,’’ it states.

“The training system must be able to cope with the rapid pace of change in the digital skills needed by job roles.’’

The DSO report says that 90 per cent of major tech industry representatives interviewed by the Tech Council of Australia want improvements to training and qualifications.

“This includes industry proprietary training, providing relevant digital skills through short courses or industry microcredentials,’’ the report states.

However, the DSO found, “industries lack control’’ over the development of training qualifications.

“Contributing factors include ineffective industry input and ineffective collaboration in determining training content and approaches,’’ its report states.

“Translating skilling requirements into training delivery can take several years, which puts the training system at risk of rapid obsolescence.’’

The DSO report reveals that workers are shunning vocational training in IT, despite the soaring demand for staff with IT skills.

Enrolments plunged 19 per cent in vocational IT programs through TAFE or private colleges between 2017 and 2021.

The DSO – which is being renamed the Future Skills Organisation as part of the Albanese Government’s new Jobs and Skills Council – called for formal teaching and recognition of skills, rather than qualifications.

“The training system’s focus and structure around occupations and qualifications rather than skills further contributes to rigidity,’’ its report states.

“It means the system has less flexibility to be responsive to changing industry needs, and evolution and creation of job roles across the economy.

“This contrasts with a skills-based approach emphasising the development of skills that are transferable across jobs and industries, and the ability to recognise skills regardless of how these were acquired, and how skills are built up through lifelong learning.’’

The report warns that the VET funding model – which pays for students to complete formal qualifications – leaves “little margin or flexibility for innovation to meet industry and labour market needs’’.

The DSO calculates that Australia will need to find one million more workers with digital expertise over the next three years.

Despite high migration and fresh graduates with IT skills providing 902,000 more workers, 620,000 existing workers are set to retire – leaving a shortage of 370,000 workers by 2026.