Employers and academics met for the three-yearly curriculum review of the Tech Partnership’s accredited degree programmes; working together to equip university students with the skills for the jobs of tomorrow.
The Tech Partnership was joined last week by 30 employers and academics to gain input into the higher education curriculum of the Tech Industry Gold degrees accredited by the Tech Partnership.
Every three years the curriculum is reviewed to update the key learning outcomes to ensure that the Tech Partnership degrees are in line with today’s technology skills demands. Added value such as industry insight lectures, placements and experience are also fed into the courses to give students an understanding into how businesses innovate using technology.
Cloud computing, machine learning and big data were some of the popular in-demand skills that were discussed last week but it was clear that the team work, presentation and communication skills were still the most popular aspect of the courses.
“Graduates of these degrees are passionate and that’s exactly what we’re looking for at IBM. The experience and placements that are built into these programmes are a big plus too” said Kate Ross, L&D leader, Early professionals Programme of IBM.
Since the first degree was developed in 2005, the Tech Partnership has built a network of 20 universities and over 100 organisations including large technology organisations such as IBM, Fujitsu, BT, VMWare and Microsoft to provide a curriculum that offers students the technical, business, project management and interpersonal skills that are in demand today by graduate employers.
The IT Management for Business (ITMB) BSc was the first to be developed. It set the standard for a model that has enjoyed great success with high employment rates, high success rates with 87% of graduates gaining a first or 2:1 classification and almost double the number of females compared to other computer science-related degrees.
Kevin Doyle, the ITMB course director at University of the West of England, Bristol fed back to employers that “The IT Management for Business degree is the jewel in the crown and achieves high results”.
Due to the success of ITMB, a sister degree was developed with employers to provide a more technically focused software engineering course that would allow students to also develop crucial business acumen and communication skills. In 2014, the Software Engineering for Business course was rolled in to universities such as Oxford Brookes, Queen Mary University of London and the University of Chester.
With over 4,000 alumni and 1,700 current students on the programmes, the Tech Partnership degrees continue to grow as does demand for skilled graduates in a technology-focused economy. If your organisation would like to help shape these programmes for the future, please contact [email protected].
The employer-led, not-for-profit organisation ‘Tech Partnership Degrees‘ is taking forward the Higher Education work of the Tech Partnership, which is closing in September 2018. This includes the industry-accredited Tech Industry Gold degrees – IT Management for Business (ITMB) and Software Engineering for Business (SEfB) – and the Tech Industry Gold degree apprenticeships.
