Ireland's third-level colleges must provide increasingly specialised courses and become more responsive to the changing needs of industry if the State is to benefit from a global digital media industry that is expected to be worth $1.5 trillion (€1.18 trillion) by 2009, a high-level Government report has warned.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers report for the expert group on future skills needs and Forfás notes non-technical skills such as project management, sales and marketing are increasingly important in the digital media sector.
The international digital media market is widely believed to have significant potential for future investment in Ireland. But the report, which also examined skills requirements in some of the world's leading digital media "clusters", reveals that a "high-quality" mix of creative, programming and technical skills will be required here.
It believes a "ramping up" of skills is required to stimulate overseas investment and to boost the "emerging" Irish digital media industry. But it finds that the scope of digital media education provided in the United States is more varied and diverse than in Ireland.
The report also notes the need for the benefits of digital media clustering to be "sold" more effectively to the public and university sectors and, in particular, to the private sector.
Despite an overall downturn in information and communication technology-related sectors in the early years of this decade, the report emphasises that many of its subsectors, are still "high-growth" areas, a trend that is expected to continue.
For example, the global gaming market is predicted to grow from $25 billion in 2004 to $55 billion in 2009, while the global e-music market is predicted to grow from $4 billion to $25 billion in the same period. But it warns that the range of Irish courses dedicated to specific digital media sectors such as games, mobile/wireless, animation and film, is relatively low, with less than 10 per cent of the courses reviewed being sector-specific.
While the overall scope of digital media education is "quite diverse", it also notes that the technologies taught may not be "industry standard".
