The Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) and e-skills UK are collaborating on a national licence of IT Professional Standards on which local standards for information technology will be based, IT Minister Austin Gatt announced today.
The Standards for ITalent, as these standards are being branded locally, will provide companies with guidance on how to develop their employees' e-competences in a structured way to respond to changes in their business and the sectors in which they operate.
In addition, companies will be able to target training and develop budgets to reduce any skill gaps which might be hindering their overall business development.
The Standards are also of relevance to students aspiring to become ICT professionals as they will be able to steer their studies to reach their desired professional standard. Furthermore, educational institutions will be able to churn out readily equipped ICT talent which the industry needs at that point in time, MITA said.
Dr Gatt said ICT-skills have in fact become a core component of Malta's strategy to promote 'new skills for new jobs'.
He affirmed the importance of continuous investment in strategies and processes enabling the nurturing of more and better qualified e-skilled professionals.
"The absence of a clear set of standards will lead to inefficiencies in the growth and utilisation of the current and prospective ICT talent pool. Therefore the investment in the Standards for ITalent marks a significant step towards augmenting the ICT profession," concluded Dr Gatt.
MITA Chairman Claudio Grech, said that this initiative will clearly define the e-competences required for the fulfilment of the various ICT-related job categories in the industry by having an official set of Maltese ICT occupational standards and e-skill guidelines.
"These standards are a tool that adds value to the current economic climate, where businesses expect their talent, their human resources and their line-managers to make the best of their sometimes limited resources. The
Standards for ITalent are an extremely important management tool enabling businesses to nurture and retain valuable human resources," added Mr. Grech.
The Standards will be used for the first time in Malta by six local companies including MITA, ICT Solutions, Bank of Valletta, Computime, Exigy and Crimsonwing.
These companies will be using the Standards in designing role/job profiles and descriptions, recruitment processes, performance management and devising training plans. e-skills UK, who have years of experience working with blue-chip companies who also use these Standards, will provide training and expertise for the companies in this learning curve and will hand-hold the local firms in deriving value-add from the Standards in their talent management. The training
will start in the first weeks of 2012.
The University of Malta and MCAST will also be contributing to the process of localising the Standards by reviewing a set of modules and translating/mapping these using the taxonomy tool in the Standards.