The Australian Computer Society (ACS) has called on the Federal government to increase its funding for ICT training and resources in the nation’s schools.

In the latest of a spate of public pronouncements from the increasingly activist ACS, the professional body has also called for the creation of a national computer literacy standard in Australia’s primary and secondary schools in the next two years to ensure young people are equipped with a sufficient level of ICT skills when they leave high school.

ACS President, Edward Mandla launched the ACS’s ICT Literacy Policy today at its government conference in Canberra. The ACS said its policies were aimed at ensuring teachers were better trained, and providing young people with access to computers and quality education in the use of technology.

The ACS is calling on the Federal Government to commission a nationwide research project to assess the varying standards of computer literacy in Australian schools.

The ACS proposes a number of initiatives, including:

·         Creation of a national computer literacy standard in schools

·         Adoption of benchmarking tools for computer literacy in Australian secondary schools

·         Creation of Federal and State Government programs to further embed ICT into the curriculum of all Australian schools

·         Establishment of professional development programs for teachers to ensure all school teachers are confident and competent in using ICT

·         Provision of Federal Government funding in the technical infrastructure of schools to ensure sufficient bandwidth at affordable rates

·         Provision of funding at Federal and State level in order to continually upgrade and increase the number of computers and software in every primary and secondary school classroom in Australia

·         Establishment of a National Education Portal that will allow online content to be delivered by teachers that are not "in-house", allowing students from all over the country access to resources, providing significant benefits to students in rural Australia.

ACS President Edward Mandla said there were various studies in Australia that show there is a widely acknowledged shortage of adequately prepared teachers for senior secondary school specialist ICT subjects.

"The ability of students to participate in society and improve their educational and career prospects is dependent on the skills they receive in using computers and information technology tools," said Mr Mandla. "Every school leaver needs to enter the working world or move to higher studies with a basic level of computer competence. Having some level of IT competence is now a life skill."

Mr Mandla said that students that graduate from school without an adequate grasp of ICT are setting themselves up for a life with a limited ability to meet their fundamental needs such as employment, quality health care, access to facilities and information.

"For Australia to compete effectively as a technological nation in the future we need to increase our investment in the national education sector and this starts with creating a system that allows for a basic level of IT literacy," he said.