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In 2006, only 250 students went for IT studies in Swiss Universities while they were 600 the year before revealed Swiss newspaper “Le Temps”. This is a paradox since the Swiss economy desperately needs IT people. “Banks are frenetically looking for IT professionals” declared Jürg Kohlas, researcher at the IT department of the University of Fribourg.



2008 will be “The Year of IT” and many initiatives will be launched to motivate high-school students to take IT courses at University. For example, the Hasler Foundation together with ICT Switzerland and the Swiss Association for Research in Information Technology (Sarit) will invest 20 million Swiss francs in a programme which aim is to reintroduce IT programming courses at secondary school and to give teachers IT training.



In fact, since 1995 IT has been reduced to elementary applications such as typewriting at high-school. The result is that youngstgers surf on the net, download video and write on blogs but don’t have a clue about how it works technically.



Why don’t they want to work in IT? The reasons are the same as in many other countries. First, IT has a bad image in Switzerland too. Teenagers think the majority of IT professionals are nurds without social life. Second, they still have in mind the Internet bubble burst and its flow of massive layoffs.



But many firms are looking for IT people especially in the field of software programming since they need security engineers to develop their information system said Jürg Kohlas.



A good sign is already visible since the region of Zürich has already reintroduced IT lessons in 80% of its secondary schools. Let’s hope that other regions of the nation will follow this example.