Title: On Romanian Experiences Related to Universities and ICT Industry
1On Romanian Experiences Related to Universities
and ICT Industry
- Vasile BALTAC and Dan Mihalca
- ATIC- The Information Technology and
Communications Association of Romania
2nd IT STAR Workshop Universities and ICT
Industry Genzano, 26 May 2007
2ROMANIA Economy
- Member EU accession since 1 January 2007
- Rate of growth of GDP
- remarkable in the last 5 years
- Stable exchange rate
- One digit inflation
- The labour force - 9.3 M
- low unemployment - 5.5
- 3-4 M people work abroad
- Local investments and FDI
3ROMANIA ICT deep roots in the past
- First country in Easter Europe to build
computers CIFA-1957, MECIPT1961, and
DACICC-1962 - Industrial base built in the 1970s
- Licenses CII-France, Friden-Holland, Ampex,
Memorex, Control DataUSA, etc. - research, manufacturing, service, trade and data
processing organizations - 1980s a 40.000 people workforce
- Minicomputers Made in Romania exported
- Czechoslovakia, East Germany, China, Middle East
countries and other markets - Technologies became obsolete in the period
1980-1989 due to lack of investments in hard
currencies
4ICT in Romania 1990-2006
- All world major ICT companies present in Romania
- Romanian ICT best assets
- human resources
- a quickly developing market.
- Romanian education system
- largely recognized as on of the best in the world
of ICT - 5.000 new graduates enter the labour market every
year - Brainbench Co. puts Romania first based on the
number of skilled programmers in Europe - 8.000 software and IT services companies in
Romania - a process of acquisitions mergers
- entry in EU will probably accelerate this process
- Many multinationals started create RD,
production or service centres in Romania - Various reports appraise eReadiness of Romania
- IT accessibility, affordability, digital literacy
and content availability yet not completely
adequate
5IT Industry Romania 2003-2009
- High rate of all IT sectors 2003-2005 continuing
2006-2009 -
6Communications Industry
- The communication market similar evolution
- 3G and iMode present
7ICT Diffusion Index
8ICT Diffusion Rank 1998 - 2004
9Universities in Romania
- Extensive network -116 universities
- both public and private
- accredited by a special body belonging to the
Ministry of Education - failure of accreditation dissolved
- University network cover all major cities of
Romania -
- Total 116
- Public Universities 56
- Private University with accreditation 32
- Private University with temporary
accreditation 28
10Universities with ICT specializations
- ICT studies - a long time established reputation
- First graduates of computer engineering
- Politechnica University of Timisoara in 1966
- Politechnica University of Bucharest in 1967
- University of Bucharest and Academy of Economic
Studies in Bucharest followed quickly - Before 1989 list completed by universities or
technical universities in Cluj-Napoca, Iasi,
Craiova
11Universities with ICT specializations
- 46 specializations in four categories
- Computer, telecommunications and electronic
engineering (graduation in engineering) - 9 - Informatics (graduation in economics) - 14
- Accounting informatics (graduation in economics)
- 11 - Informatics (graduation in mathematics) 12
- The 46 ICT specializations in 36 universities
- 20 of them have one or two faculties of ICT
profile. - All located in cities with tradition in the field
and good educators
12ICT Work Force
- Every year 5,000 graduates
- Theoretical and practical skills
- Romania - 13th place in the world as number of IT
graduates - On per capita base Romania has more IT graduates
than the United States, Russia, India or China - Excellent language skills
- 80 of the IT work force speaks English,
- 25 speaks French and
- 11-12 speaks German including native speakers
- Brainbench IT vendor certifier
- Romania - the fifth in the world after India, the
United States, Russia and Ukraine as total number
of IT certified individuals - Same place as percentage of the population
13Use of ICT Work Force
- 1990-2000 - a serious exodus of the IT experts
- mostly to North America and Western Europe
- After 2000 the trend stopped
- Emigration from 90 to 40-50
- ICT multinationals open have centres in Romania
- software, ICT applications and support
- Alcatel, Siemens, Solectron, Oracle, HP, IBM,
Infineon, Huawei, Adobe Systems, Microsoft, SAP
and many others - Salary increases vs. high quality of individuals
- Romania consolidates its status of near-shoring
country - majority of graduates now to stay in the country
14Use of ICT Work Force
- ICT industry - a HR demanding industry
- Large RD ICT centres for export
- High rate of growth of demand for domestic ICT
companies and IT departments - A pressure on the specific HR market
- quantity, mainly for several specializations
- quality and experience
- Non IT graduates after retraining programmes
join the industry - software programmers, network administrators,
project managers - Estimated number 2,500-3,000 per year
15ATIC Survey
- Assessment
- expectations of the ICT industry from
universities - expectations of the universities from the
industry - Questionnaire
- Number of IT professionals needed annually in
Romania in the next 3 years, by type of activity - The distribution of demand by programmers,
analysts, system architects, data base
administrators, security experts, salespeople,
CEO/CTO, etc. - Estimation of losses by emigration and choice of
different career path. - Opinion on the present university offer,
quantitative and qualitative - Opinion on the present curricula
- Specializations in critical demand
16ICT Industry Expectations
- General opinion - favourable to universities
- ICT Graduates give satisfaction to employers
- The relative high percentage of non-ICT graduates
in the workforce proves also the good training of
engineering, economics and mathematics education - the largest part of these non-ICT graduates come
from - Improvements sought by the industry in the
education system - education of professionals
- education at the level of basic knowledge to use
ICT
17Education of ICT Professionals
- Respondents could not agree on the number of
graduates universities that satisfy the needs of
the ICT industry - Opinions varied from 5,000-10,000 each year for
the next 3 years - Losses by expatriation evaluated at 10-40, with
1-5 losses to non-ICT jobs - Authors evaluation of need new entries to ICT HR
market - 9,000-10,000 each year
- ICT graduates - 90
- Distribution of job profiles of the new entries
- Software programmers 30-60
- System analysts 10-30
- System architects 2-10
- Administrators of data bases, application,
services 7-15 - Applications security experts 2-10
- Product, application, services sales 10-20
- CEO/CTO 1-5
- Similar estimations were made by respondents from
universities.
18Education of ICT Professionals
- Specialities claimed to be missing or
insufficient covered - telecom network topologies, data base
administration, UNIX, software testing and
integration, C, IT Storage Manager, IT Asset
Manager, Information Services Manager, mobile
devices programming, project management. - One opinion stated that the present list of job
types in ICT is completely outdated - Universities asked to cover specific demand
- Master degrees and/or other post-graduates
courses - Partnerships with foreign universities considered
a solution
19Education of ICT Professionals Curricula
- Universities asked to update annually their ICT
curricula - The present curricula are judged as obsolete,
not adapted to the new trends in ICT industry - A major consideration universities insist too
much on the theoretical training and tend to
produce super-skilled graduates - The industry needs a small number of such people
- the rest being too highly skilled become
unsatisfied with routine work, predominant in
many companies - Universities should produce normal skilled
people the super-skilled should be trained by
post-graduate programs - The Bologna process started may solve this
problem, but still it is on the table
20Basic Knowledge to use ICT
- ICT industry counts on education system, also to
prepare the people to use IT applications, i.e.
to have the basic knowledge to use ICT - ICT is not anymore a product or service for an
elite - eEurope states Information Society is for all.
- ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence)
- Licensee in Romania is ATIC (ITC Association of
Romania) ECDL Romania is in charge with all ECDL
activities - Results so far are encouraging
- 75,000 skill cards issued
- 35,000 licenses granted
- Universities responded with enthusiasm
- 35 accredited ECDL test centres in Romanian
universities - Several universities adapted IT curricula to ECDL
and accept ECDL as a proof of practical ICT
abilities - One university asks for ECDL license before
graduation
21Basic Knowledge to use ICT
- Case study shows the impact of non-basic ICT
training - Survey conducted on a group of post-graduate
students in management - all of them graduates of non-ICT faculties
- asked to answer by I know and I can explain to
others, I may know or I do not know to 40
basic words or syntagms related to ICT. - terms common or used currently by the non-IT
media or advertisers
22Basic Knowledge to use ICT Case Study
23Basic Knowledge to use ICT Case Study
24Basic Knowledge to use ICT Case Study
25Basic Knowledge to use ICT Case Study
26Basic Knowledge to use ICT Case Study
- Effort is still to be made
- to improve the ICT infrastructure in schools and
universities - to train the trainers
- The case study emphasizes the need to
- Generalize in all universities and high schools
ICT curricula that bring next generation at an
appropriate level to have all benefits of
Information Society - Renew ECDL and other general basic ICT skills
curricula at short intervals
27Universities Expectations
- Universities need industry support as the
infrastructure they possess is not easily kept
up-to-dated - The answer of the industry was positive and not
only universities are sponsored with hardware,
software, applications and know-how, but a - New form of partnership emerged partnerships
IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, Alcatel and others. - Overall good impact on the training of students
- produced a certain polarisation of ICT faculties,
a few of them becoming - Leaders with the best points in HR recruitment
- University Politechnica Bucharest for system
support - University of Iasi for application software
- Academy of Economic Sciences Bucharest for
banking applications, ERP and data bases - University Politechnica Timisoara for system
applications. - These universities are responsible for 40-50 of
graduates each year. - Within university environment there is still a
reminiscence of the old concept of high level
training for everybody - Professors criticize the fact that good students
are hired by companies during their 2-3rd grades - neglect theoretical education and not any more
motivated for a scientific career. - New Bologna type scheme (323) does not produce
the best results yet - The first 3 years are filled with many courses
repeating high school topics and student are not
given the specialization skills required by the
industry, with dissatisfaction on both sides.
28Curricula
- Universities claim to have adopted their
curricula 75-100 to the requirements of the
Bologna recommendations - Most consider revisions to be made at the end of
cycles (323) - Others consider a revision every year
- Most important issue related to curricula is the
industry demand which is not clearly defined - large companies require narrow specialized
graduates to produce immediately results, - smaller companies and the IT departments in
non-IT organizations want a broad specialization
to solve a variety of task with the same person.
- It seems that this problem is not particular to
Romania
29ATIC - A Bridge to Romania
- The Association for Information Technology and
Communications of Romania (ATIC) - organization aiming to consolidate an appropriate
framework for the development of ITC in Romania - maintains a database for co-operation projects
available to members - disseminates information to non-members
- Member of WITSA (World Information Technology
Software Alliance) CEPIS (Council of European
Professional Informatics Societies) and IT STAR - http//www.atic.org.ro
- President Dr. Vasile Baltac
- Contact officeATIC_at_atic.org.ro
30Thank You!!QA?