Dr. Amrita Sharma, PHD Scholar on Employability in ICT (Information and Communication Technology) is presently working with the capacity of Skills and Employability Expert, Information and Technology Sector.
Dr. Sharma, founder at Manaswi Business Solutions, appeared as a guest at Desh Sanchar Chautari and shared problems and possibilities relating to the ICT sector.
Information technology (IT), perhaps, could be something new two decades ago, but it has become an integral part of life conduct at present time, she says adding we begin our day using apps on mobile. ‘The IT sector has to be divided into three forms for the better grasp of matters; activities as a user, integration of IT in the processes and services of day to day life and IT as an Industry’, she reflects.
‘We are better off as consumers, for instance, ranked second as ChatGPT users in the world. We can sense some changes viewing from a digital transformation perspective –be it in banking, payment systems or education. Moreover, we cannot discount the economic contribution of IT enabled Industry- a recent study [Unleashing IT: Advancing Nepal’s Digital Economy] has revealed that we earned more than half a billion USD exporting IT services from Nepal’, she sums up Nepal’s positioning along world IT trends.
Nevertheless, lack of a conducive environment obstructs the run of the IT company flawlessly. The government, at least for the time being, has to execute from a patronage perspective to ensure an enabling environment- to which infrastructure and human capital are vital pillars.
‘Over sixty per cent of human capital recently engaged in the IT sector are Bachelors’ Degree holders and 69 per cent of those are engineers. There is an ideal opportunity at our hand to effectively use these human resources, that in turn, ease the IT entrepreneur – we can tap huge potential, being sharp-eyed’, she anticipates. However, the crux of practical sense in engineering education is being missed, as sixty percent of graduate students successfully complete their study without an internship. Hence, it takes on average seven months to turn fresh entry graduates into competent workers even on low-ticket works. Nonetheless, the theoretical part of our engineering education is noteworthy, she opines.
The swiftly emerging IT sector requires reskilling as skillsets in use instantly get obsolete- paying heed to curriculum development is a pressing need. Our curriculum neither caters needs in the country nor is competent to meet the global trend resulting in us standing nowhere.
She recalls her discussion with one of the curriculum developers during PHD pursuance. “We don’t have luxury to that level [to research global trends] of research, ” he said, which is indeed a reality”. It is significantly important for those developing the curriculum to be able to envision how coming two years would look like, so do five and ten years respectively. Then only we can expect to produce the right human resource timely.