8. Enrolments in University Information Technology Courses
Information in this section is derived from a survey of IT and closely related courses taught in New Zealand universities in 1999 conducted between December 1999 and February 2000 by the Ministry of Economic Development (formerly, the Ministry of Commerce). A search of university calendars for 1999 identified 659 courses which had some direct relevance to IT, of which 519 had students enrolled in 1999. For the purposes of the survey a course was defined as equivalent to one paper for one semester, or roughly 0.125 of an effective full time student year (EFTS). In all, there were 42,675 student enrolments (including students enrolled in several courses) of which 34,335 successfully completed, giving an overall pass rate of 80.5%.
These figures give a very conservative picture of tertiary training in IT in New Zealand. The new Auckland University of Technology has not been included and polytechnic courses were not surveyed despite many such institutions offering very relevant opportunities for study. In addition, some other university courses which could have been included were undoubtedly overlooked. It is hoped that these deficiencies will be overcome in future surveys.
8.1 Courses Offered
Figure 8.1.1 shows the numbers of courses included in the survey distributed by relevance and level. "Relevance" was assessed according to whether the course was intended to teach the use of development tools (such as programming languages), rated "highly relevant"; use of IT packages (such as drawing or modelling packages), rated "relevant"; or about the impact or management of IT, rated "somewhat relevant".
There are generally much greater numbers of, and more specialised, courses offered at higher levels.
Figure 8.1.1: IT and Related Courses Included in Survey
Figure 8.1.2 shows the number of students completing courses distributed by relevance and level. Student numbers completing "highly relevant" courses are maintained through to the end of the normal undergraduate course (Year 3). The number of students completing Year 1 and 2 "relevant" courses is substantially greater than for Year 3, possibly reflecting a high level of use of computing tools in the teaching of more introductory undergraduate material. The relatively large number of graduate students completing "somewhat relevant" courses reflects a emphasis in graduate schools on management of IT and on electronic commerce, which is likely to increase in future years.
Figure 8.1.2: Numbers of Students Completing Courses
8.2 University Comparisons
Universities in New Zealand have a high degree of autonomy in the design and content of courses. In order to place courses on a comparable basis, a "relevance value" was calculated for each course:
Relevance value = level times relevance times relative weight
Where:
| | Possible values | Multiplier value |
|---|
| Relative weight | 0.125 EFTS | 1 |
| | 0.25 EFTS | 2 |
| | Etc | |
| Level | Year 1 | 1 |
| | Year 2 | 2 |
| | Year 3 | 3 |
| | Year 4/graduate | 4 |
| Relevance | Somewhat relevant | 1 |
| | Relevant | 2 |
| | Highly relevant | 3 |
"Relevance value points" for courses were calculated by multiplying the "relevance value" by the number of students completing the course.
The University of Auckland, being by far the largest university has the highest number of enrolled students. It has both a larger number (and range) of courses than any of the other universities, and a higher share of the "relevance value points" than its share of enrolments suggesting that it has more "IT relevance" proportionately compared with other universities. This is to be expected given that it has one of the country's two engineering schools. On the other hand, the University of Canterbury, which also has an engineering school, seems to have less "IT relevance" than might be expected.
Figure 8.2: Comparisons between Different Universities
Overall pass rates between the universities range from 78.3% at Massey University to 84.6% at Victoria University. In general, pass rates for first year courses (overall, 74.3%) are much lower than subsequent years which range up to 90.6% for Year 4/Graduate level courses.
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