Outdated University Degrees Stifling Tech Innovation and Inflating Skills Shortage

A leading software developer is warning Australian universities are failing to keep pace with advances in the IT industry fuelling a growing skills shortage in the sector.

Lambros Photios, Founder of Australian software development company Station Five is calling for a re-think of university degrees like computer science and software engineering, saying the current courses are teaching outdated technologies more than a decade old.

Mr Photios, who has a degree in civil engineering admits we should be questioning whether a three or four year degree is really relevant in this sector.

“The reality is that tech taught in universities today is already outdated and even if they switch to current software languages they will be obsolete in a decade, so three and four year degrees simply give students a foundation but not the necessary skills,” said Mr Photios.

“The situation is so bad, companies are sending university graduates to tech boot camps for two or three months to make them more job ready than their entire 3 or 4 year degree,” Mr Photios said.

“Big companies like Google and Microsoft have the time to give these new grads the 2 to 3 years of training they actually need - but most other businesses don’t.”

“Universities in Australia should be teaching programming languages to create web and mobile applications, like they do overseas in Europe and the USA, where students finish university and can walk straight into a job and can actually do it.” 

“They are learning JavaScript, “Swift” - the program language Apple created, and “Flutter” created by Google yet all this isn’t being taught in Australian universities.”

“Australia needs an additional 60,000 IT workers every year as the market landscape changes and businesses move to cloud infrastructure and increased digitisation but the education streams aren’t there to provide the talent.”

“The Federal government recognises the growing demand for computer software jobs with the 2021-22 Federal Budget investing almost $1.2 billion in Australia’s digital future through a comprehensive Digital Economic Strategy but the investment will be under-utilised unless tertiary courses are updated to reflect the current technologies,” said Mr Photios. 

“There is a push for Australia to become a leading innovation hub with the government pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the sector each year, but the education streams are outdated.”

The Federal government knows the skills crisis is only going to worsen, announcing a pilot program to help connect skilled refugees with local companies hungry for talent.

“We usually import software engineers from Europe and the USA because they are so skilled, but that didn’t happen during border closures..”

The 29-year-old says there’s too much unnecessary emphasis on having a degree to get a job.

“Sure, to get a job in law or medicine obviously a degree needs to be a prerequisite but for a software business or a tech company - you need someone who understands the programming language and new grads today don’t,” he said.

About Station Five 

Station Five is an innovative Australian software company helping tech startups and scaleups to the Swiss Government in changing the way humanitarian aid is delivered to those who need it most. Station Five is an AFR Fast Starter, growing from 6 to 71 staff during the pandemic. https://www.stationfive.com/