National Information Technology Workforce Survey
At present the quantity and quality of information about the Information and Communications Technology industry in Sri Lanka is, in general, limited and fragmented. This has been identified as a significant barrier to the development of the ICT industry sector. Therefore, the Sri Lanka ICT Association (SLICTA) has taken steps to initiate a very specific survey that would deliver a very comprehensive picture of the information technology workforce in Sri Lanka.
The World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) a consortium of 65 information technology (IT) industry associations from economies around the world including Sri Lanka of which SLICTA is a member share the goal of significantly improving the capabilities and skills of ICT professionals in Sri Lanka by better aligning the training and educational curriculum with the anticipated demand for such professionals. WITSA has agreed to provide technical assistance in successfully implementing the survey. Achievement of this goal will enable:
- The IT industry, ICT user organizations and the government gain a realistic picture of the overall demand and supply of IT human resources
- Universities and other IT training institutions to improve their offerings
- Students to make better course selections
- Graduates and diploma holders of IT to have greater probability of employment
- Potential investors to have vital human resource related information that will help them make their investment decisions
Key Objectives
The survey intends to produce the following information:
- Overall size, geographical distribution and organizational distribution of the IT workforce
- Predicted demand over the coming twelve months as well as anticipated gap between supply and demand
- Determine growing employment opportunities - by IT skills set
- Determine what types of education and training are needed to obtain IT jobs and how it could be best obtained
- Best methods in use for retaining IT workers and
- Relevance of knowledge of information security for IT workers
- Survey of all key training organizations including universities to obtain a better understanding of the supply side of IT graduates and diploma holders
- Starting salaries for benchmarked skills
The survey is aimed at both ICT human resource users and ICT training organizations. A local consultant with the participation from the industry representatives and stakeholders developed the survey instrument.
More information about this initiatives is available at SLICTA News section.