It will probably sound as a cliché if one were to state that the information and communications technology (ICT) sector will be a major job provider in future; not just in Malta but also abroad. This has been stated several times and there is no doubt that several countries have managed to generate several hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs in this area. We need to remember that in this country the ICT revolution hit us quite late, given that businesses were debarred from buying a computer if it meant that they were going to make any employee redundant.
In other words, the view that we took as a country 20 years ago (and allow me this dig - some of those persons that backed this decision or were responsible for it, aspire to become ministers in the event of a change in government) was that IT makes you lose jobs and not create them. Thanks to this decision, the extensive use of computers in business was delayed considerably, which has meant that we have only been able to recognise the full potential of the IT sector in terms of jobs and wealth creation in the last few years.
We now have not just an appreciation or an understanding but also the knowledge that IT should be viewed, not only as a tool to be used by companies to support various segments of their operational and administrative set up, but also as a prime driver of the business itself.
IT (and it later became ICT) does not destroy jobs but creates jobs - jobs that are different in nature to those that we were accustomed to 30 or 20 years ago. ICT also made possible the development of new forms of working (such as shared jobs, or home working, or having a number of part-time jobs instead of one full-time job, or subcontracting) that were previously considered to be impossible.
One hears persons speaking of the need to close the digital divide. This is a very valid point because most jobs today have an element of ICT content. Even in manufacturing (and I am not referring to the manufacture of electronic products or components) operators are today expected to have an understanding of how to make use of IT applications. I feel that, as a country, we have gone a long way to close this digital divide. However, one wonders if we have done enough.
Over the past decades we have managed to close the health divide (gone are the days when people had no access to health services) and also managed to narrow to a very large extent the education divide, the social divide and the economy divide. The economy has benefited from this and the economy will benefit once more through the closing of the digital divide. However, the closure of the digital divide is accomplished not when we learn how to use a computer as a tool but when we understand that the computer and ancillary equipment help us to grow our businesses.
It is for this reason that I believe that, although I understand the need to teach IT applications in support of specific jobs, we also need to recognise that ICT is a profession in its own right, as is medicine, law, architecture and engineering, as is accountancy, etc. IT is required to support these professions but our students should be also taught that they can specialise in this segment, at various levels. It is such specialisation that renders IT a profession in its own right.
My fear is that, unless parents and teachers guide children in this direction (admittedly the eventual choice of a career has to remain in the hands of the student), we will never realise the full benefit of ICT as a creator of jobs. We will essentially remain like bonsai trees in this sector, never growing up beyond a certain size. It still sounds strange when one speaks of an IT specialisation. However, we need to remember that accountancy and banking went through the same process and today no one challenges the viewpoint that banking is a profession in its own right.
Unfortunately, we do not have up-to-date data on the number of persons employed within the ICT sector or about what this sector contributes to the gross domestic product of the country. I expect that, just as the financial services sector has today created several hundreds of jobs (building on the expertise of the past, going back to the 1950s) and is making a significant contribution to the GDP (valued at some 15 per cent), the ICT sector will likewise play an important role in the economy in the coming years. This requires us to look at a job in the ICT sector as a profession in its own right.