DTG background
The ICT Taskforce Report (2003) set the goal of New Zealand's ICT industry contributing 10% of GDP by 2012.
Talent supply to this industry was identified as a critical issue, and the report stated that the "second biggest constraint to growth of the ICT sector is the supply of appropriately educated graduates". It was recommended that "the ICT sector, secondary schools, and tertiary institutions should be more strategic in aligning course content and graduate output with industry requirements. Mechanisms are required to ensure industry input into course design and to raise student awareness of ICT as a rewarding career with both domestic and global opportunities."
Read the detailed ICT Taskforce Report (PDF, 838 kB).
In response to this report, the HiGrowth Project partnered with the Ministry of Education to commission a piece of initial work derived from the research titled “Fluency in Information Technology – FITNZ". From this piece of discovery work, AMR Consulting and Cognition Consulting were engaged by HiGrowth and the Ministry to scope and develop what is today recognised as the Digital Technology Guidelines.
The development and implementation of the Digital Technologies Guidelines is one important strategy that has potential to address skill shortages by providing coherent pathways from secondary school into tertiary institutions, and to careers in ICT.
