E-skills UK, the IT sector skills council, has moved to reassure business that a new employer-led IT degree would be a success, after it emerged the course had failed once before.
The Information Technology Management for Business BSc is the first degree created since the government launched the sector skills agreements scheme in March this year.
The University of Greenwich, Reading University, Northumbria University, and the University of Central England will pioneer the degree this year, expanding to a target 1,000 students through 22 universities by 2008.
Although the degree was branded as “new”, it was in fact first announced in 2003, and was supposed to be run by Brighton University a year later. However, it never got off the ground.
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A spokeswoman for E-skills UK said previous attempts to set up the degree had failed because there had not been enough time to properly organise it. “We can offer complete reassurance it won’t happen this time,” she said.
The degree combines academic learning and industry-related content. It is designed to bridge a perceived gap in IT knowledge and business acumen in present graduates.
