Universities not teaching IT 'for the real world'

14:49 16th July 2008

Universities have been criticised for not teaching IT students current 'real world challenges' by a group of leading executives.

The chief information risk strategist at IT services, John Pironti, believes that there is a "specific shortage of skill sets that are still in high demand" and identified blame at universities for not "having training cycles for them".

Participants at the IT governance Institute's staffing challenges roundtable also felt that finding application management staff was a major problem for their companies.

Anthony Noble, CISA at media firm Viacom, said that his company were putting in an SAP system, but finding enough staff trained around the latest version of that software was difficult.

He said: "It’s not necessarily insufficient skills, its outdated skills."

The UK's IT skills body has however announced proposals for a new Skills Academy this week, which they hope will raise the standard of the UK's IT workforce.

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