No matter how ambitious we are about a digital future for Sri Lanka, the outcome depends on one critical factor: availability of a skilled and experienced workforce. Much of that outcome depends on the quality of ICT education; particularly higher education. Not to preclude the impact of school education, but tertiary education is what ultimately polishes the diamonds. This piece aims to discuss how supply, in higher education, should best be matched with existing and future demand. It acknowledges the need to identify the demand and adjust supply correspondingly. It is not an exercise to find silver bullets but more an exploration based on data from the National ICT-BPM Workforce Survey 2019 conducted by Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA). For a better understanding of the landscape, we must examine each demand category separately. For analysis, we’ve defined four demand categories and five supply categories. Each is unique. Let’s first focus on demand.
Demand Category 1: Tech positions in firms with a focus for international market
Sri Lanka is on the brink of achieving $2 billion (equivalent to almost 2% of GDP) ICT export revenue. In terms of clientele, only 23% of ICT firms in Sri Lanka cater only to the international market while another 52% caters to both local and foreign. Of the two broad subsectors of global ICT market, most Sri Lankan firms supply software and services. Some of these serve as offshore development centres for major companies from USA, UK, Australia, Sweden, Norway, and Japan (total foreign owned firms constitute 22% of all, while 17% are of joint ownership).
Hardware manufacturing isn’t so common here. For convenience let’s focus on the needs at the moment. What sort of skills and experience does the sector expect? Mapping the entire landscape is challenging considering the varied products and services they offer to clients worldwide. Workforce Survey 2019 provides some insights by its categorisation of tech employment (Chart 1). In addition to the tech skills, a gamut of soft skills varying from language proficiency to marketing skills are necessary for a student to get even an entry-level position.
Demand Category 2: Tech positions in firms focusing on the local market
Some may consider this category a little brother of the former, but that may be misleading. Data is sparse as the Work Force Survey does not treat these two categories apart. It only says out of the 600 odd ICT firms in Sri Lanka only 25% catered only to the local market (Local ownership, on the other hand, is as high as 60%). We can only assume firms in this category are relatively smaller, compared to those in the former. Solutions they market may also be of a different level. That may provide some idea about the skills set required to place oneself in such a company, but again, that cannot be too generalized as the range here is wide.
Demand Category 3: Tech positions in non-ICT private firms
Workforce Survey 2019 identified six key non-ICT sub-sectors, namely apparel, finance-insurance-banking, agriculture and fisheries, manufacturing and engineering, trade with freight forwarding and hospitality. The tech positions available in these companies were about a third of the number in core-ICT firms (27,514 against 81,741 in ICT firms). The portion has been larger previously, but now most non-ICT firms tend to outsource their ICT requirements and procure cloud-based services limiting their need to hire staff. In addition to the gap in quantity, we also see a landscape change between these two sectors with respect to job categories (Chart 2 and 3).
Demand Category 4: Tech positions in Government
Government is an entirely different player. One can be forgiven for assuming the number of tech positions in state-controlled organisations to be few. In 2019, it was 8,363 from a total of 124,873 (about 7%). The government also defers in their demand.
What about the supply of graduates?
There is a similar landscape in supply. Just like in demand we can segregate supply to five key categories, based on the category of the institute that produces graduates and the type of the course. The latter identifies two streams in undergraduate (ICT and Non-ICT) and ICT postgraduate. (The reason to include Non-ICT undergraduates is they too constitute a key component in the ICT workforce according to Workforce Survey.) Each of these categories has its own features and challenges.
Supply Category A: ICT undergraduates from non-fee levying (state) institutes
Most state universities now offer undergraduate courses in multiple streams to cater to increasing demand. Some universities have multiple faculties offering parallel courses that are not too different in their learning outcomes. One state university offers as many as four ICT undergraduate courses under four faculties. Course contents are similar, only the entry qualifications vary. In the job market, these courses are evaluated separately. It is not unusual that students graduating from different courses with ICT degrees from the same university are offered different entry-level salaries. Recognition for the competitiveness of a course and it’s resulting from graduates being placed on a higher step of the career ladder, is mostly the responsibility of the course directors and staff. To fully meet industry demand it is essential that state universities reorganize their course structures. Currently, most courses are four years in duration with a six month internship in the third year. What the industry demands are a shorter course – may be three years – with a one year internship in the final year. Six months is too short for a firm to train a student and absorb the best out of her. Again, a final year internship offers a rather direct way to enter the workforce.
Supply Category B: ICT undergraduates from fee-levying (state and private) institutes
This is an important category of institutes giving competition to established state universities. This sector includes state-owned but fee-levying institutes such as SLIIT, NSBM and SLTC. They offer either UGC approved degrees or though affiliation to foreign universities mainly from the U.S, Europe and Australia. Then we have two Bachelor of IT degree courses offered by state universities but delivered by private institutes, According to Workforce Survey 2019 these sub sectors jointly produced more ICT graduates than the state institutions combined by nearly 3:1 (5,791 against 2,121). A strength of this category, compared to the state sector, is that the institutes are, by nature, better prepared to adjust to job market demands. They also tend to attract students with better communication skills.
Supply Category C: other undergraduates from Non-fee levying (state) institutes
What most state universities (and students) don’t understand is that the tech sector recruits non ICT graduates, provided they have adequate exposure. In 2019 state universities produced 2,414 graduates with at least 50% of their course constituting of ICT subjects. How best can they be absorbed into tech positions? If they were to get tech jobs, then why train them in a non ICT program in the first place? These are questions state universities must ponder seriously and urgently.
Supply Category D: ICT undergraduates from fee levying (state and private) institutes
Issues similar to the above exist here too. In 2019 institutes offering fee-levying courses graduated 4,817 scholars when at least 50% of their course constituted ICT subjects. Perhaps it’s time for these institutes to rethink the composition of courses. What are the objectives of students enrolling to such courses? Why not increase the ICT course intakes to include these students too?
Supply Category E: Post-graduates in ICT
This important category is often overlooked. Only 10% of the ICT workforce have postgrad qualifications in the ICT sector. Postgraduate degrees don’t receive much attention probably because of low demand. More than finances, ICT professional lack time to engage in a postgraduate course due to professional demands on their time. This is only a quick and simplified snapshot. The picture is even more complex with maybe thousands more students following ICT courses overseas too.