On Romanian Experiences
Related to Universities and
ICT Industry
Vasile BALTAC and Dan Mihalca
ATIC- The Information Technology and
Communications Association of Romania
2nd IT STAR Workshop
Universities and ICT Industry
Genzano, 26 May 2007
ROMANIA: Economy
• Member EU accession since 1 January 2007
• Rate of growth of GDP
– remarkable in the last 5 years
• Stable exchange rate
• One digit inflation
• The labour force - 9.3 M
– low unemployment - 5.5%
– 3-4 M people work abroad
• Local investments and FDI
Chart GDP Romania 2001-2006
ROMANIA ICT: deep roots in the past
• First country in Easter Europe to build computers: CIFA1957, MECIPT–1961, and DACICC-1962
• Industrial base built in the 1970s
– Licenses: CII-France, Friden-Holland, Ampex, Memorex, Control
Data–USA, etc.
– research, manufacturing, service, trade and data processing
organizations
• 1980s a 40.000 people workforce
• Minicomputers “Made in Romania” exported
– Czechoslovakia, East Germany, China, Middle East countries and
other markets
• Technologies became obsolete in the period 1980-1989
due to lack of investments in hard currencies
ICT in Romania 1990-2006
• All world major ICT companies present in Romania
• Romanian ICT best assets
– human resources
– a quickly developing market.
• Romanian education system
– largely recognized as on of the best in the world of ICT
– 5.000 new graduates enter the labour market every year
– Brainbench Co. puts Romania first based on the number of skilled
programmers in Europe
• 8.000+ software and IT services companies in Romania
– a process of acquisitions & mergers
– entry in EU will probably accelerate this process
• Many multinationals started create R&D, production or
•
•
service centres in Romania
Various reports appraise eReadiness of Romania
IT accessibility, affordability, digital literacy and content
availability yet not completely adequate
IT Industry Romania: 2003-2009
• High rate of all IT sectors 2003-2005
continuing 2006-2009
•
Chart Romanian IT Industry 2000 - 2009
Communications Industry
• The communication market: similar evolution
• 3G and iMode present
Chart Romanian Communications 2001-2009
ICT Diffusion Index
ICT Diffusion Index 2004
0.8
0.7
73
66
0.6
52
0.5
0.4
81
37
39
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Slovakia
Hungary
Bulgaria
Romania
Turkey
Ukraine
Access Index
0.678
0.64
0.607
0.582
0.535
0.543
Connectivity Index
0.321
0.349
0.248
0.184
0.193
0.141
ICT Diffusion Index
0.499
0.494
0.428
0.383
0.364
0.342
37
39
52
66
73
81
Rank
Chart ICT Diffusion Index 2004
Source: UNCTAD
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
ICT Diffusion Rank 1998 - 2004
95
85
75
65
55
45
35
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Slovakia
47
47
47
47
47
45
45
37
Hungary
45
43
44
42
39
39
37
39
Bulgaria
55
59
60
60
58
57
56
52
Romania
77
84
87
89
77
70
68
66
Turkey
78
74
71
70
68
71
75
73
Ukraine
82
83
81
79
90
90
85
81
Chart ICT Diffusion Rank 1998 – 2004
Source: UNCTAD
Universities in Romania
• Extensive network -116 universities
– both public and private
– accredited by a special body belonging to the
Ministry of Education
– failure of accreditation – dissolved
• University network cover all major cities of Romania
• Total
– Public Universities
116
56
– Private University with accreditation
32
– Private University with temporary accreditation
28
Universities with ICT
specializations
• ICT studies - a long time established reputation
• First graduates of computer engineering
– Politechnica University of Timisoara in 1966
– Politechnica University of Bucharest in 1967
– University of Bucharest and Academy of Economic
Studies in Bucharest followed quickly
• Before 1989 list completed by universities or
technical universities in Cluj-Napoca, Iasi,
Craiova
Universities with ICT
specializations
• 46 specializations in four categories:
– Computer, telecommunications and electronic
engineering (graduation in engineering) - 9
– Informatics (graduation in economics) - 14
– Accounting informatics (graduation in economics) - 11
– Informatics (graduation in mathematics) – 12
• The 46 ICT specializations in 36 universities
– 20 of them have one or two faculties of ICT profile.
• All located in cities with tradition in the field and
good educators
ICT Work Force
• Every year 5,000+ graduates
• Theoretical and practical skills
• Romania - 13th place in the world as number of IT
graduates
– On per capita base Romania has more IT graduates than the
United States, Russia, India or China
• Excellent language skills
– 80% of the IT work force speaks English,
– 25% speaks French and
– 11-12% speaks German including native speakers
• Brainbench IT vendor certifier
– Romania - the fifth in the world after India, the United States,
Russia and Ukraine as total number of IT certified individuals
– Same place as percentage of the population
Use of ICT Work Force
• 1990-2000 - a serious exodus of the IT experts
– mostly to North America and Western Europe
• After 2000 the trend stopped
– Emigration from 90% to 40-50%
• ICT multinationals open have centres in Romania
– software, ICT applications and support
– Alcatel, Siemens, Solectron, Oracle, HP, IBM, Infineon,
Huawei, Adobe Systems, Microsoft, SAP and many
others
• Salary increases vs. high quality of individuals
– Romania consolidates its status of near-shoring country
– majority of graduates now to stay in the country
Use of ICT Work Force
• ICT industry - a HR demanding industry
– Large R&D ICT centres for export
– High rate of growth of demand for domestic ICT
companies and IT departments
• A pressure on the specific HR market
– quantity, mainly for several specializations
– quality and experience
• Non
– IT graduates after
programmes join the industry
retraining
– software programmers, network administrators,
project managers
• Estimated number 2,500-3,000 per year
ATIC Survey
• Assessment
– expectations of the ICT industry from universities
– expectations of the universities from the industry
• Questionnaire:
– Number of IT professionals needed annually in
Romania in the next 3 years, by type of activity
– The distribution of demand by programmers,
analysts, system architects, data base administrators,
security experts, salespeople, CEO/CTO, etc.
– Estimation of losses by emigration and choice of
different career path.
– Opinion on the present university offer, quantitative
and qualitative
– Opinion on the present curricula
– Specializations in critical demand
ICT Industry Expectations
• General opinion - favourable to universities
• ICT Graduates give satisfaction to employers
• The relative high percentage of non-ICT graduates
in the workforce proves also the good training of
engineering, economics and mathematics
education
– the largest part of these non-ICT graduates come from
• Improvements sought by the industry in the
education system
– education of professionals
– education at the level of basic knowledge to use ICT
Education of ICT Professionals
• Respondents could not agree on the number of graduates
universities that satisfy the needs of the ICT industry
– Opinions varied from 5,000-10,000 each year for the next 3 years
– Losses by expatriation evaluated at 10-40%, with 1-5% losses to
non-ICT jobs
• Authors’ evaluation of need new entries to ICT HR market
– 9,000-10,000 each year
– ICT graduates - 90%
• Distribution of job profiles of the new entries:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Software programmers
30-60%
System analysts
10-30%
System architects
2-10%
Administrators of data bases, application, services 7-15%
Applications security
experts
2-10%
Product, application, services sales
10-20%
CEO/CTO
1-5%
• Similar estimations were made by respondents from
universities.
Education of ICT Professionals
• Specialities claimed to be missing or
insufficient covered
– telecom network topologies, data base
administration, UNIX, software testing and
integration, C++, IT Storage Manager, IT Asset
Manager, Information Services Manager, mobile
devices programming, project management.
– One opinion stated that the present list of job
types in ICT is completely outdated
• Universities asked to cover specific demand
– Master degrees and/or other post-graduates
courses
– Partnerships with foreign universities considered a
solution
Education of ICT Professionals: Curricula
• Universities asked to update annually their ICT
curricula
– The present curricula are judged as obsolete, not adapted
to the new trends in ICT industry
• A major consideration: universities insist too much
on the theoretical training and tend to produce
super-skilled graduates
– The industry needs a small number of such people
– the rest being too highly skilled become unsatisfied with
routine work, predominant in many companies
– Universities should produce normal skilled people; the
super-skilled should be trained by post-graduate programs
• The Bologna process started may solve this
problem, but still it is on the table
Basic Knowledge to use ICT
• ICT industry counts on education system, also to prepare
•
the people to use IT applications, i.e. to have the basic
knowledge to use ICT
ICT is not anymore a product or service for an elite
– eEurope states “Information Society is for all”.
• ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence)
– Licensee in Romania is ATIC (IT&C Association of Romania) ECDL
Romania is in charge with all ECDL activities
– Results so far are encouraging
– 75,000+ skill cards issued
– 35,000 licenses granted
• Universities responded with enthusiasm
– 35 accredited ECDL test centres in Romanian universities
– Several universities adapted IT curricula to ECDL and accept ECDL
as a proof of practical ICT abilities
– One university asks for ECDL license before graduation
Basic Knowledge to use ICT
• Case study shows the impact of non-basic
ICT training
• Survey conducted on a group of postgraduate students in management
– all of them graduates of non-ICT faculties
– asked to answer by “I know and I can explain
to others”, “I may know” or “I do not know” to
40 basic words or syntagms related to ICT.
– terms common or used currently by the non-IT
media or advertisers
Basic Knowledge to use ICT: Case Study
Chart
Basic Knowledge to use ICT: Case Study
Chart
Basic Knowledge to use ICT: Case Study
Chart
Basic Knowledge to use ICT: Case Study
Chart
Basic Knowledge to use ICT: Case Study
• Effort is still to be made
– to improve the ICT infrastructure in schools and
universities
– to train the “trainers”
• The case study emphasizes the need to:
– Generalize in all universities and high schools ICT
curricula that bring next generation at an appropriate
level to have all benefits of Information Society
– Renew ECDL and other general basic ICT skills
curricula at short intervals
Universities Expectations
• Universities need industry support as the infrastructure they possess is not
easily kept up-to-dated
– The answer of the industry was positive and not only universities are sponsored
with hardware, software, applications and know-how, but a
– New form of partnership emerged: partnerships IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, SAP,
Alcatel and others.
• Overall good impact on the training of students
– produced a certain polarisation of ICT faculties, a few of them becoming
• Leaders with the best points in HR recruitment:
– University Politechnica Bucharest for system support
– University of Iasi for application software
– Academy of Economic Sciences Bucharest for banking applications, ERP and data
bases
– University Politechnica Timisoara for system applications.
– These universities are responsible for 40-50% of graduates each year.
• Within university environment there is still a reminiscence of the old
•
concept of high level training for everybody
Professors criticize the fact that good students are hired by companies
during their 2-3rd grades
–
neglect theoretical education and not any more motivated for a scientific career.
• New Bologna type scheme (3+2+3) does not produce the best results yet
– The first 3 years are filled with many courses repeating high school topics and
student are not given the specialization skills required by the industry, with
dissatisfaction on both sides.
Curricula
• Universities claim to have adopted their curricula 75•
•
•
100% to the requirements of the Bologna
recommendations
Most consider revisions to be made at the end of cycles
(3+2+3)
Others consider a revision every year
Most important issue related to curricula is the industry
demand which is not clearly defined:
– large companies require narrow specialized graduates to produce
immediately results,
– smaller companies and the IT departments in non-IT
organizations want a broad specialization to solve a variety of
task with the same person.
• It seems that this problem is not particular to Romania
ATIC - A Bridge to Romania
• The Association for Information Technology and
Communications of Romania (ATIC)
– organization aiming to consolidate an appropriate framework for
the development of IT&C in Romania
– maintains a database for co-operation projects available to
members
– disseminates information to non-members
• Member of WITSA (World Information Technology
Software Alliance); CEPIS (Council of European
Professional Informatics Societies) and IT STAR
http://www.atic.org.ro
•
• President Dr. Vasile Baltac
• Contact: officeATIC@atic.org.ro
Thank You!!
Q&A?