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Professional Quality Assurance Ltd. will fund three $3,000 scholarships at UNB

With a severe shortage of skilled workers in New Brunswick's information and communications technology sector, some companies don't have the workers they need to grow. But one Fredericton firm is trying to address the problem with a new scholarship program.

Professional Quality Assurance Ltd., a software testing and quality assurance company, is funding three $3,000 scholarships for students entering the University of New Brunswick's computer science program.

"I just want to encourage New Brunswick kids to look at computer science as an opportunity when they're considering where to go to school," PQA founder and president Keith McIntosh said.

Ali Ghorbani, dean of computer science at UNB, said this is one of the first scholarships at the university established by a New Brunswick ICT company and he hopes there will be more in the future.

"I would like to see PQA become an example for other larger companies in New Brunswick," he said.

Alan Munro, a member of Propel ICT's talent team, which focuses on growing the ICT work force, said the new scholarship is good news for the sector.

"I applaud any effort to encourage more students to get into the IT field," he said. "We need more students in the undergraduate program - if scholarship programs help attract them, that's great."

But he isn't sure a lack of scholarships is the primary reason students aren't enrolling in computer science.

Munro, who is also the human resources director of J.D. Irving, Limited's IT division, said a bigger reason students aren't enrolling is because people have a false impression that there aren't many jobs in the industry.

"People seem to think that with the dot com bubble (bust) IT just evaporated and just never came back," Munro said. "The truth is anything but that."

A 2006 report by Propel ICT showed the province needs an extra 1,700 skilled workers. Munro believes that number is roughly the same today though Propel plans to conduct an updated survey in the coming months.

Propel and UNB both have initiatives in New Brunswick high schools to try to inform students what computer science, and the IT industry is really all about, in hopes of pushing up enrolment.

Another deterrent from computer science, according to both Munro and Ghorani, is its perception as a "geek" program.

"That is so far from the truth," Munro said.

ICT is about solving problems for businesses or various clients with computers, Ghorbani said. "They end up doing many things in many areas - it's not just in front of computers."

But New Brunswick university and college programs won't likely be able to solve the labour shortages soon enough.

"Even if every shortfall was filled with new students you're looking at about four years out," Munro said.

But according to Information Communications Technology Council data, there were 1,500 students in ICT-related undergraduate programs in Atlantic Canada in 2001-02 but in 2007 there were only about 500. Though Ghorbani said enrolment is up over the past three years, at least in UNB's program, a sudden surge would be required to meet New Brunswick's demand.

Because of this, Propel's talent team is also looking at immigration and repatriation initiatives to fill some of the gaps.

Munro is hoping these initiatives will work as his division will be looking for 20 to 30 new people over the next two to four years.

"You need the right talent at the right time to advance any project," he said. "If you can't find it, it can slow things down."