Birchwood Declaration 2007 – Tertiary ICT Skills 1

Birchwood Declaration for Tertiary Level ICT1 Skills Development

Declaration Version of 25 July 2007

Members of the National Department of Education (DoE), the formal and informal ICT2 education sector, the ICT industry and other employers of ICT graduates, met for a Colloquium on ICT Skills Development at the Birchwood Conference Centre in Boksburg, Gauteng, South Africa on 19 March 2007. The gathering was held at the invitation of the Minister of Education, Mrs Naledi Pandor, and was called as a result of the existence of a significant ICT skills gap between the workplace demand and the current rate of production of the tertiary sector. This gap is evidenced in the current growth targets of government initiatives, the perceptions of industry recruiters, and the capacity of both ICT professionals and ICT educators within the South African ICT sector. This declaration results from the deliberations of the Birchwood Colloquium and the follow-up drafting efforts of a Task Team in e-mail consultation with attendees. This declaration recognises:

a. the increasing economic importance of ICTs within South Africa and the world at large, and the cross cutting role of ICT in supporting all areas of human activity, and the generation of knowledge across all disciplines.

b. that the ICT skills gap impacts upon both the global competitiveness of South Africa, and the country’s internal ability to support the aspirations of its citizens, but is solvable in the short to medium term by suitable systemic interventions and institutional strategies.

c. that Tertiary Education plays an essential role in development and capacity building within the sector.

d. that, whereas the setting of high standards of curricula and educational quality are fundamental, a range of subject specializations and approaches is required at a local level to service sector needs and to allow for the emergence of centers of excellence. Retaining a diversity of tertiary level ICT related offerings across the system is in the interests both of the nation and of individual citizens.

e. that there are barriers to entry for ICT education that result from a range of factors including a lack of awareness of career opportunities amongst learners, and limited preparedness to cope with tertiary level ICT content.

1 The scope of the term Tertiary Level ICT for the purpose of this declaration is taken to span the disciplines of computer science, information systems, information technology, and software engineering at tertiary institutions within the South African public education system. Electrical Engineering students were not included in the discussions or figures quoted in this document, since this discipline is receiving attention through an initiative of the DoE which is focussed upon engineering in general. 2 ICT – Information and Communications Technology.

Birchwood Declaration 2007 – Tertiary ICT Skills 2

The parties present at the Colloquium resolve as follows: I. Intake Given that the quality and preparedness of school leavers is a primary concern, the universities commit themselves to the following steps. These require both financial support and ongoing engagement from the Department of Education and the ICT industry.

a. Advocating ICT as a Career Choice i. Undertaking a marketing/advocacy programme to address the lack of

knowledge amongst school leavers and guidance teachers about possible career opportunities in the ICT sector.

b. Engaging with Schools i. Engagement with schools which are geographically close to university

campuses and those where (feeder or collaboration) relationships already exist, to gain a better understanding of the problems of under-prepared learners, and to assist with improving quality.

ii. Targeting learners with potential who reside in areas outside of the proximity of universities by visiting those schools, and identifying and supporting those scholars to undertake university studies. This will need field workers to visit, select and nurture these students, and encourage them to enrol in a fair spread of universities. This process must be seen as impartial.

iii. HEIs3 that offer student “internships” or service learning are encouraged to facilitate their students working in local schools to assist with both literacy skills and system development/maintenance.

c. Improving Success Rates i. Provision of “bridging” courses (linked to section III below).

ii. Provision of support for at-risk students (through to second- and third-year level, where appropriate).

II. Curriculum We recognise that the international curriculum guidelines produced by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), in conjunction with the IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS) and the Association for Information Systems (AIS), set widely-accepted international norms for the spectrum of ICT-related subjects (i.e. computer engineering, computer science, information systems, and software engineering). These guidelines form the accepted “canon” for ICT education, recognised across international and social boundaries. We further recognise that these guidelines provide for localisation and for institutional autonomy and differentiation through the specification of optional curricular elements, and the use of appropriate local examples. We recognise that the localisation of the curriculum should be driven by engagement with local industry players and government strategies, in order to tailor the curriculum to local development and national competitive needs. The following curriculum-related areas will specifically be considered by ICT teaching departments at South African universities:

3 HEIs – Higher Education Institutions

Birchwood Declaration 2007 – Tertiary ICT Skills 3

a. Coverage of technical and business convergence issues, content that spans technical and business boundaries, and entrepreneurial issues.

b. Increased consultation with a wide range of industry representatives across the HE (Higher Education) system to enhance institutional content differentiation.

c. Providing short-term (two to three week) inter-institutional visits by teaching staff to promote capacity and quality development across the HE system.

III. Graduate Production The following specific strategies are called for:

a. Dedicated skilled ICT manpower within ICT teaching departments at South African universities, targeted at bridging under-prepared entering students and at providing improved tutorial support for students at more advanced levels who are not making satisfactory progress with present levels of support.

b. The addressing of local sector needs within the ICT graduate output, through encouraging and expanding existing partnerships and new collaborative ventures between industry, government and universities.

c. Consideration of the introduction of masters-level “conversion” courses for graduates from other disciplines to address the shortage of graduates with ICT skills.

d. Provision by national government of special, limited work permits for foreign graduates from South African universities (building on the Quota Work Permit initiative announced by Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula in April 2007). This would provide a pool of skilled labour (which has been trained using South African resources) in the short- to medium-term. Such work permits could be limited to a period equivalent to that for which the student has studied in the South African tertiary system, and the total number granted could be limited if necessary. Preference might also be given to students from SADC4 countries, providing a form of additional experiential training for these students before they return to their home countries.

e. Attention by individual institutions to the remuneration level of academic personnel in the ICT disciplines, which is seen as the primary reason for difficulties in attracting and retaining ICT lecturers.

Since the skills mismatch highlighted by this document is likely to vary with time, and as a result of the interventions recommended here, ongoing attention should be given to the research being conducted by the HSRC5 and JIPSA6 in this regard. IV. Infrastructure (Human and Physical) The poor level of financial support for ICT teaching departments at South African universities arises primarily from the anomalous weighting applied to these subjects in the Department of Education’s funding formula. This situation severely curtails the ability of ICT departments to compete for limited resources within their institutions. Addressing this by increasing the level of funding for ICT subjects will provide an improved basis for the provision and maintenance of physical and human infrastructure.

4 SADC - The Southern African Development Community 5 HSRC – Human Sciences Research Council. 6 JIPSA - Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition

Birchwood Declaration 2007 – Tertiary ICT Skills 4

In terms of providing additional human resources for the teaching of ICT subjects at tertiary level, we call on the national government to provide well-funded bursaries for postgraduate research students, which would require an equivalent work-back period as a lecturer within the South African public university system. These would have to be sufficiently funded to offset the attraction of salaries offered by the ICT industry in order to attract and retain students. V. Grand Challenges Grand challenges have traditionally been viewed as a useful mechanism for stimulating research and innovation, and have the potential to do so for the ICT sector in South Africa. The current developments in South Africa around the SKA (Square Kilometre Array) and KAT (Karoo Array Telescope) projects and the CHPC (Centre for High Performance Computing) are viewed as providing scope in this regard. The ICT Roadmapping exercise conducted by government in 2002–2004 also identified a number of priority areas for local development and innovation. Using these national initiatives as a starting-point, we call upon the CSSA7 and SAICSIT8 to arrange a biannual think-tank to bring together academic, research organisation, industry and government leaders to set strategic goals for ICT research and innovation. The first of these should be held by June 2008. VI. A 5-year Intervention To give effect to this declaration, the parties present at the Colloquium resolve to undertake a concentrated 5-year intervention comprising:

i. Addressing the DoE HE subsidy category for ICT core content courses (i.e. not ICT literacy or end user computing courses) to bring it in line with disciplines requiring costly and rapidly ageing laboratory resources.

ii. The establishment of an ICT careers advocacy unit to enhance the public profile of ICT careers.

iii. The formation of a DoE targeted ICT tertiary support programme to improve ICT student throughput by improving human resources for bridging programmes and mainstream programme specialist tutorial support at tertiary institutions.

iv. The institution of a DoE targeted ICT national postgraduate bursary programme, intended to boost the number of tertiary level ICT educators.

These concentrated efforts will dovetail with the ongoing responsibilities of the tertiary sector, ICT and ICT-related industry, and the DoE in addressing issues of intake, curriculum, graduate production, and resource improvement, for which renewed commitment has been expressed by all parties to this declaration. The 5-year special focus and accompanying strategy will provide the additional impetus to:

a. create a turnaround in the current trend of declining undergraduate outputs in core ICT qualifications.

b. make between 30 and 50 additional ICT educators available to the national tertiary system by the end of the 5-year period.

7 CSSA - Computer Society of South Africa. 8 SAICSIT - South African Institute for Computer Scientists and Information Technologists.

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c. channel the combined efforts of the parties into increasing enrolments across the period by 20% and improving throughput rates within the system by a minimum of 10%.

By the end of the 5-year period (2008-2012), the combined strategy will yield an annual increase of 850 graduates and advanced diplomates in core ICT disciplines, including capacity for 50 additional ICT graduates at the Masters and PhD level per annum.

Addendum – Budget and Further Details A-1

Addendum to the Birchwood Declaration for Tertiary Level ICT Skills Development

Budget and Further Details of the 5-Year Intervention

This addendum contains budget implications and further details. In addition to addressing the subsidy category used for funding universities for ICT teaching and research activity, the DoE is requested to provide funding for the components of the 5-year intervention The overall budget implication of the 5-year intervention is as follows:

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 5-year Total The ICT Careers Advocacy Unit R 3,425,100 R 3,454,732 R 3,732,989 R 3,915,759 R 4,168,983 R 18,697,563

The DoE Targeted ICT Tertiary Support Programme

R 5,500,000 R 8,786,250 R 12,476,475 R 13,287,446 R 14,151,130 R 54,201,301

The DoE Targeted ICT National PostGraduate Bursary Programme

R 1,400,000 R 2,982,000 R 4,207,975 R 3,974,154 R 2,701,579 R 15,265,708

Grand Totals R 10,325,100 R 15,222,982 R 20,417,439 R 21,177,359 R 21,021,692 R 88,164,572

i. Addressing the DoE HE subsidy category for ICT core content courses This component of the strategy will have an ongoing, self sustaining impact on the sector, supporting the provision of additional resources (physical, human and running) in HEIs, and the ongoing maintenance and renewal of these resources (including the short term interventions and needs highlighted in this document and not explicitly budgeted for in this addendum). We propose that core ICT courses9 be brought in line with disciplines requiring the time commitment and equipment costs of other laboratory intensive disciplines.

ii. ICT Careers Advocacy Unit The unit will be set up to enhance the public profile of ICT careers by:

• Performing advocacy field work amongst parents and learners in schools across the country, paying particular attention to rural areas.

• Training university lecturers and postgraduate students in SET10 communication techniques, to equip them to undertake their own advocacy activities and enhance the public understanding of their work.

• Generate television, radio, and popular print media material, which will be aimed at promoting ICT career choices.

9 We exclude ICT literacy and end user computing courses from this category. 10 SET – Science, Engineering, and Technology

Addendum – Budget and Further Details A-2

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 5-year Total Field worker 1 / manager R 340,348 R 362,471 R 386,031 R 411,123 R 437,846 R 1,937,819

Field worker 2 R 275,000 R 292,875 R 311,912 R 332,186 R 353,778 R 1,565,751 Field worker 3 R 275,000 R 292,875 R 311,912 R 332,186 R 353,778 R 1,565,751 Media officer R 210,000 R 223,650 R 238,187 R 253,669 R 270,158 R 1,195,665 Office administrator R 130,000 R 138,450 R 147,449 R 157,033 R 167,241 R 740,173

Graduate Student Internship Budget R 300,000 R 319,500 R 340,268 R 362,385 R 385,940 R 1,708,092 Human Resources sub-total R 1,530,348 R 1,629,821 R 1,735,759 R 1,848,583 R 1,968,741 R 8,713,252 Office rental and running costs R 480,000 R 511,200 R 544,428 R 579,816 R 617,504 R 2,732,948 Travel budget R 768,000 R 817,920 R 871,085 R 927,705 R 988,006 R 4,372,716 Running expenses sub-total R 1,248,000 R 1,329,120 R 1,415,513 R 1,507,521 R 1,605,510 R 7,105,664 Capital Equipment R 200,000 R 20,000 R 75,000 R 20,000 R 20,000 R 335,000 Host institution overheads R 446,752 R 475,791 R 506,718 R 539,654 R 574,732 R 2,543,647 Totals: R 3,425,100 R 3,454,732 R 3,732,989 R 3,915,759 R 4,168,983 R 18,697,563

iii. ICT Tertiary Student Support Programme This programme is intended to grow ICT student throughput in core courses by improving human resources for bridging programmes and mainstream programme specialist tutorial support at tertiary institutions. The programme will cater for bids from HEIs for short term posts in core ICT departments specifically for these programmes, and should be accompanied by plans for how the additional manpower will improve on what is already available at the institution, and targets for throughput improvements envisaged by the intervention at the bidding institution.

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 5-year Total Number of qualified teachers supported 20 30 40 40 40

Lecturer equivalent package R 275,000 R 292,875 R 311,912 R 332,186 R 353,778

Totals: R 5,500,000 R 8,786,250 R 12,476,475 R 13,287,446 R 14,151,130 R 54,201,301

iv. DoE Targeted ICT National Postgraduate Bursary Programme This bursary programme is targeted explicitly at boosting the number of Tertiary level ICT educators. Bursaries will be offered on an individual application basis for full-time study at the Masters and PhD levels, tenable only at South African HEQC11 accredited universities for study towards a core ICT higher degree. Acceptance of the bursary will require the candidate to enter into a service contact with the bursary authority which obliges them (on a year for year basis) to lecture and/or supervise research in an ICT department within the HEQC system, or to work in the ICT Careers Advocacy unit. This initiative is intended to fill vacant ICT lectureship posts in tertiary institutions, and to assist in staffing the ICT Tertiary Student Support Programme and the ICT Careers Advocacy Unit.

11 HEQC - Higher Education Quality Committee

Addendum – Budget and Further Details A-3

Funding will be for a maximum of 2 years at the Masters level and 3 years at the PhD level.

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 5-year Total Bursaries Offered 20 40 53 47 30 Bursary Value R 70,000 R 74,550 R 79,396 R 84,556 R 90,053 Totals: R 1,400,000 R 2,982,000 R 4,207,975 R 3,974,154 R 2,701,579 R 15,265,708

To graduate 50 Masters and 30 PhD candidates over the 5-year period, the following approximate intake and follow through is required:

Year Masters 1 Masters 2 PhD 1 PhD 2 PhD 3 TOTAL 1 13 7 20 2 13 13 7 7 40 3 10 13 16 7 7 53 4 14 10 16 7 47 5 14 16 30

Consideration should be given before the end of year 3 to continuing the bursary scheme beyond the 5 year intervention period, so that additional PhD candidates may be taken on in year 4.

v. Appropriate Success Indicators It is important to note that we fully expect the graduate output to continue to decline in the first two years of the intervention for 3-year qualifications, and in the first three years of the intervention for 4-year qualifications. This is due to the current downward trajectory of enrolments, the pipeline effect of qualifications that is very dependent upon the size of the intake in the first year, and the inherent lag time in the throughput interventions for showing results. An appropriate early indicator of success for undergraduate qualifications in year three is that the enrolments for undergraduate courses should have improved by approximately 9% at the start of year three 3 (2010) over year zero (2007), for the 20% target to be achievable over the 5-year period. We expect the impact of the advocacy unit on enrolment figures to be more quickly evident than the longer term impacts of the throughput and staffing initiatives. For shorter period honours and masters degrees, the pipeline effect is not as dramatic, and the downward trajectory not as prevalent, so we can anticipate improvements in outputs throughout the 5-year intervention period. We expect the output increases in Masters and Doctoral degrees to be dominated by the presence of the DoE Targeted ICT National Postgraduate Bursary Programme, and fairly easy to monitor in relation to that aspect of the intervention. Any undergraduate outputs in year 4 (2011) that exceed year zero’s (2007) figures will be indicative of a sharp turnaround, which in turn will put the strategy in a position to show significant improvements in outputs in subsequent years.

Addendum – Budget and Further Details A-4

The final success indicator of the intervention will be the improvement in graduation rates in the year following the 5-year intervention (2013), as compared to year zero (2007). We should expect to measure in year 6 an additional 850 graduates and advanced diplomates in core ICT disciplines, including the capacity for 50 additional ICT graduates at the Masters and PhD level per annum. The medium to long term benefit of the intervention is the annual increase in graduate output rates in the years following the 5-year intervention period (as indicated above). However, during the period of the intervention, we can expect an additional 133012 graduates and diplomates to be produced as compared to what would otherwise be expected. These projections have been based upon relatively conservative assumptions. We strongly recommend that consideration be given in year 4 to the ongoing impacts of the various elements of the intervention, and to whether any or all of them merit further support after the 5-year period proposed.

12 Calculated from the low point of the output turnaround for each category of qualification, and assuming that the downward trajectory would flatten out at the turnaround points in the event that no intervention is mounted.