Richard

UK

Consultant

Shortage of "expert" IT skills; or poor IT skills throughout the workforce? (Or both??)

The government could quickly relieve any shortage of "expert" level IT staff, simply by removing the crazy barriers and disincentives that they introduced themselves:

- Abolish IR35, S660 etc. to encourage freelance experts to travel to fill temporary shortages and to keep their skills up to date;
- Allow full tax relief on training costs, to encourage self-motivated workers to improve their skills;
- Encourage the recruitment, retention & re-training of older workers, who - despite their wealth of experience - are so often ignored by HR departments & recruiters.
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To improve the general level of IT skills of the whole workforce, training needs to be made much more relevant and much less specific to particular (Microsoft) products;

At present, too much IT training teaches only how to operate the IT; rather than how to apply it;

So, instead of boring classes (and exams) which concentrate on which button to press on version xxx of Microsoft product yyy; office workers should be given the confidence to use IT - ie. generic skills applicable to any IT - and be shown how to apply IT so as to improve their productivity.
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However, none of this will happen while so much government policy is driven by envy and by the desire always to "level down."

The current training quangos seem far less effective than the much derided "Industry Training Boards."

Also, having destroyed the technical colleges & polytechnics by encouraging them to offer often worthless degree courses; the government has yet to replace this level of education & training.