This year marks a milestone in information and communication technology (ICT) at the University of Malta. This year's graduates in IT were the tenth group going out into the workforce.
The Board of Studies for IT (BOSIT) was set up as a collaboration between three departments of the University, two from the Faculty of Science and one from the Faculty of Engineering, outside existing faculty structures, following an initiative involving the current Rector, Professor Juanito Camilleri, Professor Albert Leone Ganado and Professor Paul Micallef.
The aim was to provide industry with the software and information professionals that were essential and which were not being provided from within the existing faculty structures.
These graduates are present both in the manufacturing and in the service industries, especially in the areas of communications and financial services. They are also the backbone of the growing software industry.
The graduates have shown an excellent measure of entrepreneurship, with many successful start-up companies that are growing in number and which cover various areas, from embedded systems to software development.
The board has an excellent rapport with local industry. The final year includes a module that includes lectures by a number of professionals from the industry. The board has started a Masters in IT conversion aimed at graduates in any field, who wish to move into the ICT area.
Over the past two years the board has developed, with its counterpart department at MCAST, collaboration aimed at giving students from MCAST, who are capable of continuing their studies at University, the possibility of moving to the University through a vocational path, without going through the standard path of the MATSEC certificate.
The feedback from industry is that there is a need for a large number of professional graduates in IT, a number considerably more than that being produced by the BOSIT at present.
Over the past few years the importance of communications and information engineering as part of IT has increased. The EU sustains the vision of ICT as a coherent entity to provide the professionals as well as the necessary synergy between engineering and computing sciences to drive forward research in this area.
Both Government and Opposition in their development plans have earmarked ICT as one of the pillars on which to plan for the future. However, within the present University structures, the board has no representation on Senate and has had to fight for its survival.
One hopes that the long saga within the University on how to treat ICT is concluded as soon as possible. Within the holistic picture of science, engineering and technology, ICT must take its position as an equal and no longer as an appendix to the existing structures.