YOUNG Australians are so afraid of being labelled geeks that we are losing our best IT talent and falling behind the world when it comes to technological innovation.

Experts are warning that our kids are steering clear of computer science degrees because of the incorrect stereotype of a nerd programmer chained to their desk punching in numbers all day.

And they are pointing the finger of blame at teachers and parents for reinforcing outdated perceptions of the industry.

The number of enrolments in IT university degrees has fallen by more than 30 per cent in the past decade and Australia will face a significant deficit in the number of professionals in the information and communications technology sector if the trend isn't reversed.

Professor Leon Sterling, president of the Australian Council of Deans of ICT, said Australia already struggled to fill the sector's 460,800 jobs, which contribute $36.2 billion to the national economy.

Geek is not the word, say Aussie Google workers

A workforce and productivity report has already warned that more skilled workers will need to be imported from overseas to fill the 32,200 extra ICT jobs by 2017.

Among the issues faced by the sluggish sector are poor standard of teaching in schools and the negative stereotype of ICT workers as geeks and nerds.

Prof Sterling said many careers counsellors and parents were of a generation that did not understand ICT and often reinforced negative stereotypes to school leavers.

It meant the challenge of enticing young people into the industry was dramatically hindered, he said.

"It's a very big problem," Prof Sterling said.

"I think it's a bit of a generational (problem). For a lot of people, if they don't know someone who's worked in ICT, they don't understand what the job is. For a whole generation (of parents and careers counsellors), you haven't got people (who worked in ICT) because it wasn't an industry."

Simon Kaplan, a research laboratory director at National Information Communications Technology Australia, said $12 million was being spent changing the perceptions of the industry and improving the quality of teachers at schools and universities.

He said the industry was still picking up the pieces of the dotcom bust that worried many about job security in IT.

But there were now more jobs in the sector than any other field in Australia, Mr Kaplan said.

"Unfortunately once perceptions are created ... they take a huge amount of effort to overcome."

One of NICTA's goals is to appeal for young people to "discover the joy and pleasure and wonder of working" in the industry, he said.

"It's amazingly creative. With IT you're creating whole new worlds. People are inventing things that never existed before. It's amazing, it's wonderful."

But for now, the lack of university students graduating with IT degrees is leaving gaping holes in the sector, says Kym Quick, chief executive officer of leading recruitment company Clarius Group.

"It's a problem now but it's a bigger problem in the future," she said.

Thomas Shanahan, communications executive at the Australian Computer Society, said it was crucial to grow the sector for "a strong economy" in the future.

KEY STATS

- 460,800 people employed in ICT in Australia

- $36.2 billion to the Australian economy

- 32,200 extra ICT jobs by 2017

- 4.2 per cent of ICT jobs filled by skilled migrants

- $52,500 median starting salary for ICT graduates

Source: ICT workforce study by the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency

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