First steps towards bridging ICT skills gaps

The eSkills Alliance Malta is working on the blueprint for a national ICT professional body to create more awareness on the ICT profession. It intends to contract international experts to work with their Maltese counterparts to devise an e-competences demand and supply monitor; a continuously-updated policy-making tool which feeds demand and supply information in ICT to government and educational providers.

John Ambrogio, chairman of the eSkills Alliance Malta, spoke about these initiatives to i-Tech at the side of an international meeting organised in Malta by CEPIS, the Council of European Professional Informatics Societies. Mr Ambrogio was a keynote speaker at the meeting. CEPIS recently won a European Commission tender for the creation of a European Framework for ICT professionalism and a European training programme for ICT managers.

“We are currently working on a blueprint for this national ICT professional body which will meet a long-perceived need for an organisation that brings together the ICT professionals from various domains, the ICT industry, the ICT educational institutions and the upcoming ICT practitioners and promote the profession,” explained Mr Ambrogio.

“We have held a series of one-to-one meetings with representatives of the industry, through the close links which we have managed to establish with the IT business section of the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry. In these meetings we discussed the perceptions on the raison d’être of this new organisation, the legal aspect of the entity, the structure of the membership, the activities which will fall within its remit and the general level of endorsement that this professional body will gain with the industry. The board of governors of the Alliance consists of a healthy mix of private, public and educational representatives and I trust that we will reach the required consensus to launch a body which is truly representative of the Maltese context.”

The eSkills Alliance Malta was established last October through a multi-stakeholder partnership led by the Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) together with other public sector actors, business representative organisations and the private ICT sector. It is mainly concerned with ensuring that business gets exactly the e-skills it needs, by identifying and pursuing the creation of practical and relevant ICT skills, including targeted skills that attract investment and jobs with the best prospects. The work which the Alliance is doing resonates with international discussions and the e-skills agenda of many countries.

The e-skills monitor implemented by the European Commission confirmed that despite the steady increase in the ICT workforce over the past decades, the continent as a whole is currently facing a serious e-skills shortage and will continue to do so in the upcoming years. While at a European level the picture is clear, one of the current limitations in Malta is that hard empirical facts and figures are not exhaustively available to corroborate the European and international findings and to subsequently plan the right interventions and investments in the supply of e-competences which Malta and foreign investors need. A Maltese e-skills monitor is therefore needed.

“We are currently seeking to contract international experts who will be working with their Maltese counterparts to devise an eCompetences Demand and Supply Monitor. This monitor will be a ‘live’ policy-making tool which continuously feeds demand and supply information to government and educational providers,” said Mr Ambrogio.

“The monitor will also be useful for employers seeking to understand the current supply and pipeline of students and skills. It will help us fine-tune the activities we have planned – training, specialisation, awareness, industry engagement, professional development for the educators – to the forecast needs for the ICT industry to grow in its local and foreign servicing. The details will be launched soon and the activities will be kicked-off in the coming months.”

A European study published in 2010, eSkills 21, revealed that the employment of ICT professionals in Malta (2.30 per cent) is close to the European average (2.23 per cent) – this however does not mean that the current performance matches Malta’s collective aspirations, insists Mr Ambrogio.

“From the supply side, we have managed to boost the number of academic graduates, vocational and industry-certified individuals in ICT and business-related fields. These are the most relevant inflow contributors towards improving the innovation and competitiveness of the industry. But the nation needs many more ICT qualified human resources, in further specialisations and of the highest calibre possible. This can only be achieved if the government, industry and educational institutions manage to find common ground and synchronise resources.”

One of the burning issues in ICT is how best to ensure that ICT professionals obtain recognised, transferable skills and qualifications that will serve them in an industry that is constantly changing. This issue is also being tackled in Malta and Mr Ambrogio is in a position to announce progress in the creation of a so-called Maltese e-Competence Framework.

“We have analysed best practices in Europe and beyond and we are pleased to announce that we have a refined outline for a Maltese e-Competence Framework with the full endorsement of the industry and the educational institutions. This Framework will act as the Maltese ICT occupational standards and e-competence guidelines for use by the government, the educational authorities and institutions, other public stakeholders, the private sector employers and individuals interested in ICT skills and the ICT industry.

“The components that have been included in the Framework – the descriptors of the ICT disciplines, the advancement routes per discipline and the competences associated with each sub-discipline – will be promoted (and not imposed) as a guiding and supportive tool for improved HR management of ICT professionals.” Mr Ambrogio looks back at the first six months of hard work by the eSkills Alliance Malta with satisfaction, especially the fact that it brought together stakeholders from different backgrounds to work together to meet an important national challenge.

“We have been through numerous fruitful meetings and discussion sessions where healthy self-criticism by the various stakeholders has fuelled a number of plans and the design of a good number of activities.

For the first time we have managed to instigate discussions between the private and the public educational sector which will lead to the achievement of common goals in a more streamlined fashion. We understand each other better now than six months ago and even if that might sound simple it has been no mean feat!” concluded the chairman of eSkills Alliance Malta.