IT grads damn university courses

And blame government for lack of help

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in IT Director, 11th January 2006 15:20 GMT

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UK IT graduates complain that their university courses do not prepare them for work in the real world and that the Government is not doing enough to help them find jobs.

Only six per cent of recent IT graduates believe the Government is doing enough to get them into work.

In an online survey, 46 per cent of respondents said their degree course failed to provide them with relevant skills. A further 41 per cent said that, with hindsight, they would have preferred to have gone straight into work and training than to university.

Graduates were disappointed they were not taught Java and .NET - despite demand for them in the commercial sector. Only 10 per cent of graduates were committed to working in the public sector.

Rob Flavell, CEO of training firm FDM, which paid for the research, said: "The e-Skills Council needs to urgently address the issue of universities failing to offer training in the latest programming languages. It's clear that more people than ever are open to the idea of vocational training to get the skills they need, rather than automatically opting for university study, and we will see this trend rise dramatically in the next few years."

The e-Skills council did not return calls for comment.

The survey was answered by 500 recent graduates and users of graduates-jobs.com - 61 per cent were male and 39 per cent female.®

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