Australian undergrad IT demand shifts to 'softer' areas

16.03.2006
Demand for undergraduate degrees in IT continued to drop this year, with preferences shifting away from traditional computer science, engineering and programming subjects to newer offerings such as game development and degrees that combine arts or business subjects.

University Admissions Center (UAC) figures show that the number of students electing to study IT related degrees across New South Wales universities fell this year. The lowest fall was 4 percent, while the biggest drop was 36.7 percent. The center did not wish to name the universities. .

Only Southern Cross University experienced an increase, with a 2.8 percent rise in enrolments.

University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Faculty of Information Technology Associate Dean, David Wilson said even though IT enrolments took a slight dip this year, UTS has had consistent demand for the four years previous.

The school's newest offering is a combined IT and business degree introduced for the 2004 intake, which has become increasingly popular and is now attracting numbers of students equal to the technology degree.

"We are certainly seeing the interest in the 'pure' IT, BScIT, falling while interest in the combined business and IT, BBusBComp, is rising," he said.