Gaza labor-market-needs-assessment-for-the-digital-economy-1

Gaza Labor Market Needs Assessment for the Digital Economy
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Gaza Labor Market Needs
Assessment for the
Digital Economy
March 2013
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Table of Contents
1. Message from Mercy Corps.......................................................................................................VI
2. Acknowledgements..................................................................................................................VII
3. Definitions and Acronyms .....................................................................................................VIII
4. List of Tables.............................................................................................................................. X
5. Executive Summary .....................................................................................................................1
5.1 Summary of Recommendations ..................................................................................................................... 3
6. Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 5
6.1 Structure of the Report.................................................................................................................................... 5
6.2 Objectives........................................................................................................................................................... 7
6.3 Study Methodology........................................................................................................................................... 7
6.4 Gaza’s ICT Sector and Environmental Factors........................................................................................... 8
7. Describing the Skills Gap...........................................................................................................11
7.1 Employer Preferences, Employee Demographics.....................................................................................12
7.2 Technical Skills, Core Jobs and Priorities in ICT Companies.................................................................13
7.2.1 Core ICT Job Roles ................................................................................................................................13
7.2.2 Core ICT Skills ........................................................................................................................................16
7.2.3 Applications of ICT................................................................................................................................20
7.2.4 The Importance of Certifications.........................................................................................................23
7.3 Business Skills..................................................................................................................................................24
7.4 Experience and Projects ................................................................................................................................26
7.4.1 Undergraduate Academic Projects .......................................................................................................27
7.4.2 Internships................................................................................................................................................28
7.4.3 Freelancers, the Self-Directed Professionals.......................................................................................28
7.5 The Views of the Learning Sector, Higher Education Institutions........................................................32
7.5.1 Blending Education, Training and Professional Development.......................................................32
7.5.2 The Learning Sector Perspective..........................................................................................................33
7.6 Summary of Observations and Recommendations...................................................................................36
8. Global Experience with ICT Skills Gap......................................................................................38
8.1 Key Findings of Skill Gaps Internationally.................................................................................................38
9. Gaza’s Opportunity Gap ............................................................................................................42
9.1 The Paradox of Gazan Tech: High Adoption, Low Diffusion..............................................................43
9.2 Non-ICT Organizations as the Local Market for ICT .............................................................................44
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9.3 Non-ICT Organizations as Employers .......................................................................................................46
9.3.1 ICT Usage.................................................................................................................................................47
9.3.2 Hiring Prospects and Obstacles............................................................................................................48
9.4 Women and the Opportunity Gap...............................................................................................................48
10. Gaza’s Missing ICT Labor Markets.........................................................................................51
10.1 Encouraging the Growth of the Digital Economy .................................................................................51
10.2 ICT Diffusion................................................................................................................................................52
10.3 Outsourcing...................................................................................................................................................53
10.4 Micro-work....................................................................................................................................................54
10.5 Summary of Observations and Recommendations.................................................................................55
Annex 1 - What the Jobs Are: ICT Professions...............................................................................56
Annex 2 - How to Prepare: ICT Fields of Study.............................................................................72
Annex 3 - Additional Data Tables...................................................................................................78
Annex 4 - Bibliography...................................................................................................................84
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1. Message from Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps believes that people can emerge stronger from challenges, and thousands of young
Gazans are studying ICT in an effort to do just that. The ICT industry in Gaza is the object of
many hopes. With the gap between graduates’ education and employment, ICT could also
become a source of much disappointment. To work with graduates of ICT in Gaza is to
contemplate that gap. This study seeks to understand it and move to solutions.
By considering ICT as a labor market, Gaza’s local debate is reframed as a skills gap. Gaza’s
conditions are unique, but its skills gap is not. ICT skills gaps are common in developing and
developed technology industries, and the labor market perspective brings regional and global
experience into sight. As its skills base is strengthened, Gaza’s ICT industry can look for growth
to overcome its second gap, the shortfall in opportunities. This is also a report about
employment creation.
The questions asked here took shape over eighteen months of formulating ICT training,
internships, business and start-up support; getting to know freelancers and company owners and
hearing the ambitions of hundreds of graduates. These activities, as well as this report, are parts
of the Palestinian Community Assistance Program, fully funded by USAID. We are grateful to
USAID for their vision and continuing support of Palestinian ICT.
This report makes practical recommendations, but the work will fall to many people: educators,
companies, NGOs and young ICT professionals. Mercy Corps looks forward to supporting this
work, as Gazans build their industry and animate it with their own vision.
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2. Acknowledgements
The Gaza Labor Market Needs Assessment for the Digital Economy was researched by
Fawaz El-Alami, Mohamad Arafat, Dr. Jaber Abo Jamea and Arafat Alaf, under the guidance of
Taysir Shaqalaih and Marilyn Garson. Additional research was designed and carried out by Taysir
Shaqalaih.
The study was written by Marilyn Garson and edited by Sarah Ferris. Graphics were designed by
AlHasan AlDasooqi.
Special thanks to Ahmad Hegazy for his valuable inputs during the design phase of this study,
and to Ola Issa for her inputs to the study and support to the process of research and writing.
To an unusual degree, this study was the product of extended debate and reflection, while Mercy
Corps’ Economic Development Unit tried to untangle the employment paradox of Gazan ICT.
In that sense, the study has had many contributors including Rasha Abu Safiyeh, Ibrahim al
Jobour and Wasim abu Zaher.
The following individuals contributed their thoughts to the shape and content of the research:
Mozna Abu Mery, Dr. Bishara Khoury, Khaled Abu Hasna, Hazem El-Mashharawi and Haneen
Abu Ghali.
Mercy Corps wishes to express its appreciation for each of the respondents in this research for
their time and their insights.
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3. Definitions and Acronyms
Definitions
Business Skills
The report uses this term to refer to skills such as project management
and accounting, as well as “soft skills” such as communication and
teamwork. For simplicity’s sake, the report does not differentiate
between business and soft skills.
Digital Economy
An international, technological marketplace of communications and
commerce. Digital economy jobs may be located in any industry and
out-sourced to any location.
Higher Education
Institution (HEI)
A college, university or training center.
ICT Adoption Individual decisions to use new technologies.
ICT Companies
Companies or individuals, including freelancers, whose core products
are technology (goods or services). Also called “ICT producers”. These
are primarily for-profit companies.
ICT Diffusion
The study of technology’s spread and popularization by understanding
patterns of ICT adoption and usage.
Labor Market
Market in which workers compete for jobs and employers compete for
workers.
Learning Sector
The collection of higher education institutions including colleges,
universities and training centers.
Non-ICT
Organizations
Any company, governmental, public, or non-governmental organization
or business which might apply ICT to its work. However, their main
products are not technology.
Opportunity Gap
The insufficient number of ICT jobs available, as well as high
competition for the jobs that do exist.
Skills Gap
A quantifiable mismatch between the package of skills offered by the
labor force and the package of skills sought by employers.
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Acronyms
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GPA Grade Point Average
HEI Higher Education Institution (s)
IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
ICT Information and Communication Technology
IFC International Finance Corporation
INGO International Non-Governmental Organization
MENA Middle East and North Africa
NGO Non-Governmental Organization
PCBS Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics
PITA Palestinian Information Technology Association of Companies
UCAS University College of Applied Sciences
UN United Nations
USAID United States Agency for International Development
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4. List of Tables
Number Title of Table/Box
Page
Number
Box 1 Perspectives on the Skills Gap 11
Table 2 Aspects of the Skills Package 12
Table 3 Satisfaction with Recent ICT Graduate-Employees 12
Table 4 Sample Dashboard, Core ICT Job Roles 13
Table 5 Competitive Opportunities, Core ICT Job Roles 14
Table 6 Identified Skills Gap, Core ICT Job Roles 15
Table 7 Moderate Opportunities, Core ICT Job Roles 15
Table 8 Graduates’ Skills Patterns 16
Table 9 Highly Competitive Skills 17
Table 10 Identified Skills Gap 18
Table 11 Moderate Opportunity Skills 19
Table 12 Skills of Declining Importance 19
Table 13 Summary of Job and Skills Categories 20
Table 14 Skills Gap in ICT Applications 21
Table 15 Competitive ICT Applications 22
Table 16 Moderate and Declining ICT Applications 22
Table 17 Impact of Certification on Recruitment 23
Table 18 Business Skills Gap 25
Box 19 Perspectives on Internships and Academic Projects 27
Box 20 Common Issues in Mercy Corps’ ICT Internships 28
Table 21 Views of Education by Graduates 29
Box 22 Mohammed Saleh Yaghi: Building a Freelance Career 31
Table 23 Minimum GPA to Study ICT in Gaza 33
Table 24 Examples of Programs that Address ICT Skill Gaps outside of Gaza 40
Box 25 Perspectives on the Opportunity Gap 42
Table 26 ICT Equipment in Homes 43
Table 27
Percentage of Persons 10 Years or Older Who Use the Internet by Purpose,
Gaza and West Bank
43
Table 28 Percentage of Business Establishments with ICT Tools in Gaza 44
Table 29 Main Reported Purpose of Internet Use by Business in Gaza 44
Table 30 Computer Use by Number of Employees in Business, Gaza and West Bank 45
Table 31 Business Computer Use by Economic Activity, Gaza and West Bank 45
Box 32 Perspectives on Non-ICT Organizations’ Employment of ICT Graduates 46
Table 32 Core ICT Job Roles – Full Table 79
Table 33 Core ICT Skills – Full Table 80
Table 34 Core ICT Skills: Hardware Maintenance and Networking Skills 81
Table 35 General and ICT Strategic Consulting Skills 81
Table 36 Skills in ICT Applications 82
Table 37 Certifications – Full Table 83
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5. Executive Summary
This study explores Gaza’s ICT employment from a labor market perspective. Unlike existing
studies of the ICT industry which focus on the needs of companies, this is a study of
employment needs and prospects. Gazans frequently discuss ‘the gap between ICT education
and employment’, a local question regarding the quality of education. A labor market perspective
views this as a skills gap, a common occurrence with regional and global experience to help
shape solutions. Narrowing the skills gap is vital for young Gazans to grow with the industry,
especially for women who can capitalize on ICT’s more merit-driven hiring practices. The ICT
sector will not grow without improvements to the skills base.
The first part of the report outlines the quantifiable skills gap in each aspect of the ICT skills
package. In each area of focus the research identifies competitive opportunities and finds a
number of market opportunities which are unfilled due to graduates’ lack of skills. These skill
gaps are actionable. The research also shows that graduates consistently score highest in skills
which are already oversupplied or declining in the marketplace: graduate skills lag behind market
trends instead of anticipating market needs.
Students report that they are confused about what to study and how to specialize in either
technical or business skills. In response, Mercy Corps developed a multi-dimensional evaluation
of market opportunities. The evaluation combines the anticipated growth, adequacy of the
existing workforce and current level of graduate skills so that students and educators can make
future-oriented decisions.
Graduates may try to strengthen their skills by taking additional courses from training centers,
but they have no structured opportunity to link their self-directed study with practice. Regionally,
ICT skills gaps are being addressed by creating integrated training/practice programs, but Gaza
has no such channel.
Also clearly lacking are combined degree programs, and the study of ICT as an applied science.
Students need to understand the problems for which technology proposes solutions. The
absence of such study options limits the ability of graduates to contribute effectively to ICT
employment in non-ICT sectors, as graduates are less aware of the metrics, issues and processes
of importance to their employers.
The skills gap has no single owner, and no quick fix. From primary education through to an
individual professional’s responsibility for his or her own lifelong learning, responsibility is
shared. Globally, this shared responsibility is leading to innovations as the private sector
becomes integrally involved in the development and delivery of curricula which are responsive to
market needs. Similar cooperation between the private sector and the learning sector would
greatly benefit Gaza.
Gazan ICT graduates must also confront an opportunity gap, or shortfall, to which the second
part of this research is dedicated. ICT jobs are not where they should be, both because
technology is not intensively used in other parts of Gaza’s economy, and because Gaza’s ICT
companies are not securing international contracts.
Among young Gazans, technology is pervasive, especially in the form of mobile phones.
Computer ownership is now widespread in Gaza’s medium-sized and larger companies, so the
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potential for ICT growth is improving. However, most ICT usage is still not of the intensity
which improves a company’s performance or profitability, or creates ICT employment.
Obstacles to wider technology usage are partly external, and partly local and actionable. Among
their obstacles, research respondents consistently say that no one has clearly explained what
technology might do for their companies.
Gazan organizations miss the potential benefits of technology, and ICT companies have only a
weak, small local market in which to learn. This negative cycle has consequences far beyond the
absence of ICT employment. Globally, governments prioritize the spread of ICT because it fuels
other industries’ growth and performance. Lack of technology constrains Gaza’s economic
growth. If the public and private sectors understand technology as an investment in Gaza’s
economic development, then Gaza will take one step toward closing Gaza’s ICT opportunity
gap.
Currently, Gaza lacks the breadth of ICT employment that would be created by a strategic effort
to intensify the spread of technology, the concentrations of employment that result from
international contracting, and the individual jobs to be had in micro-work. These innovations are
unlikely to occur without support, and the report concludes with key lessons from wider
experience in these three areas.
Drawing on the key findings of the research, a Summary of Recommendations follows.
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5.1 Summary of Recommendations
To Students and Graduates:
 Acknowledge and accept the growing individual responsibility for competence in the ICT
industry.
 Specialize. Study a few specialties in-depth. Follow a specific study path, and prioritize
the business skills appropriate for that path.
 Imagine and research ICT more broadly, and seek cross-sectoral experience and study.
To Universities, Colleges and Training Centers:
 Emphasize learning of ICT as an applied science in order to produce graduates who view
technology from the perspective of non-ICT employers. Develop combined degree
programs.
 To improve the effectiveness of skills training:
 Link business skills to specific job roles such as Communications for Quality
Assurance or Problem Solving for Security Specialists.
 Integrate skills learning with the practice and judgment that translates knowledge
into a skill.
 Strengthen internal processes to select effective projects which are relevant to the ICT
market and study. Ensure that projects are regularly assessed, so that students realize the
maximum benefit.
 Empower students with the information to specialize, and add specialist courses.
 Add courses or electives that further develop freelancing, business and entrepreneurial
skills of ICT students through ICT curricula.
 Use a global, professional standard like that of the IEEE to evaluate curricula and
graduate competencies.
 Streamline the dozens of ICT degree programs, adding more advanced technical courses.
 Consider raising grade point average (GPA) entry qualifications for ICT programs.
 Work earlier and more closely with the private sector to outline and deliver market-
relevant ICT education. Update curricula annually, anticipating market trends.
 Establish multi-disciplinary degree programs in applied ICT, focusing on sectors which
show the greatest potential to grow or improve their operations with technology in Gaza.
To ICT Companies:
 Rationalize the range of starting skills expected of new graduates, acknowledging that
many business skills are complex and require time to mature.
 Produce and distribute useful information on emerging specialties and qualifications to
guide study and education.
 Learn to conduct a client-centered dialogue about the benefits of ICT.
To Non-ICT Organizations:
 View ICT as a strategic response to Gaza’s isolation and constraints.
 Consider trials of local social marketing for Gaza’s young demographic.
 Consider ICT diffusion at the industry level, to create network effects and maximize
benefit. Consider ICT for decentralized processes, as well as commercial processes.
To Donors and Non-Governmental Organizations:
 Empower students, graduates and educators with information to anticipate market trends
and job-specific qualifications.
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 Acknowledging the role of freelancing in acquiring experience and earning income,
consider creating a platform to address freelancers’ individual obstacles of infrastructure.
 View ICT as a labor market issue as well as a business development issue. Invest in
infrastructure, skills and access, relationship innovations, information, etc., to build the
skills base that the industry requires.
 Design educational programs and pilot projects that address the skills gap, beginning
with employer input so that graduates acquire the skills prioritized by their future
employers.
 Establish a platform for integrated skills-and-practice training.
 View technology as an enabler in economic development. Encode the value of ICT into
industry value chains.
 Ensure women are mainstreamed into ICT projects, and if necessary, pilot projects
which empower women to participate in the ICT labor force, with transport and remote
work facilities.
 Recognize technology as a cross-cutting issue, and view ICT diffusion as a component of
economic development as well as employment growth. Consider a targeted ICT diffusion
program based on thoughtful, client-centered consultation on the benefits of ICT; an
industry- and size-specific target group. Incorporate access to investment funds and skills
to implement and maintain projects into planning.
 Develop pilots in the missing forms of ICT employment: strategic diffusion initiatives,
outsourcing and micro-work aggregation. These forms of employment are not likely to
materialize without support.
For Public Policy in Gaza:
 Establish a policy, curriculum framework and standards to rationalize ICT learning
choices and evaluate education or training delivery.
 Support a streamlined curriculum development process within universities, and consider
rationalizing the range of degree programs in this field.
 Formulate an ICT policy, recognizing the role of technology in economic performance
and competitiveness.
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6. Introduction
6.1 Structure of the Report
This report examines information and communications technology (ICT) employment issues in
the Gaza Strip. Gaza has produced a number of studies of the needs and growth prospects of its
ICT sector. Those studies view skilled human resources as one input to ICT companies, and
companies were the primary focus of the studies. This report is different: it is an employment-
focused study of the Gaza ICT labor market. (A few definitions will help the reader better
understand some key elements of the study. Highlighted words in this section will appear
throughout the report. They can also be found in Section 3, Definitions and Acronyms.)
The [labor market is the] market in which workers compete for jobs and employers compete for workers.
- Freedictionary.com
Labor markets function through the interaction of workers and employers. Labor economics looks at the suppliers
of labor services (workers), the demands of labor services (employers), and attempts to understand the resulting
patterns of wages, employment and income.
- Wikipedia.com
A number of benefits follow from examining Gaza’s needs from the perspective of a labor
market. It avoids the anti-competitive issues that can arise when donors or programs assist some
companies in ways that others cannot replicate. It allows instead for the issue of employment to
be matched with existing knowledge of market development or market facilitation, a more
sustainable approach for the application of public funds. The recommendations in this study are
primarily phrased in this way, as interventions to improve the functioning of the labor market.
Gazans are highly educated, with high unemployment; yet employers report difficulty hiring and
mixed success rates when they do hire. These facts led Mercy Corps to study Gaza’s ICT labor
market through the definition of a skills shortage – not a shortage of labor but of the ‘skills
package’ needed by companies. A Canadian study defines the ICT skills package as including
educational qualifications, competence on the particular applications or platforms in use,
knowledge of the business processes for which ICT is the solution, and a set of soft and
business skills. The study refers to a skills gap rather than a simple shortage, a quantifiable
mismatch between the skills offered by graduates and the skills sought by employers. The study
notes that a skills gap always includes as its mirror a large pool of educated, disappointed job
applicants, and so it is in Gaza.1
The report includes a detailed, multi-dimensional description of Gaza’s ICT skills gap (Section
7). Each core ICT job and technical skill is evaluated in at least four dimensions: present and
future importance, the adequacy of Gaza’s existing workforce to meet market demand, the skills
sets within each ICT company, and the skills of graduates. These four evaluations outline
competitive, moderate and declining opportunities; and in each case, they also identify promising
opportunities which are going unrealized due to the skills gap among ICT graduates. Section 7
also explores a wide set of business and soft skills by comparing their importance to employers
against the contributions that universities, colleges and training centers believe they can make to
graduates’ skills. Graduates’ own sense of their skills reveals two gaps: one between graduates
1 Information and Communications Technology Council, Outlook for Human Resources in the Information and
Communications Technology Labour Market, 2008 to 2015, October 2008, page 9.
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and employers, and another gap between graduates’ views and the projections of their educators
and trainers. The learning experience is also evaluated from graduates’ perspectives, including
several programs which aim to provide graduates with work experience. Some views from the
learning sector reveal contrasting assessments of the skills gap.
Gazans regularly discuss the local gap between ICT education and employment, as if it were
unusual. In fact, a skills gap is a common phenomenon in the ICT labor markets of developing
and developed countries. Defining Gaza’s skills gap as a labor market issue introduces global
experience, which can then be adapted to Gaza’s unique situation. Section 8 elaborates some of
the regional lessons learned as other economies, primarily in Jordan and Egypt, attempt to
address their own skills gaps. There is considerable guiding experience for Gaza, although sadly
no one seems to have found a quick fix or a short-cut across the skills gap.
Gaza’s ICT sector has attracted significant donor attention, but when it is examined, the ICT
sector is clearly too small to provide employment for Gaza’s thousands of new and recent
graduates. Viewed from an employment perspective (and looking at the ICT sector as an
employer) it becomes clear that ICT is too narrowly defined when the industry is limited to
companies or freelancers who produce ICT goods or services. This study refers to these as ICT
companies. These are primarily for-profit companies, and their core products are technology.
Globally, a sizeable proportion of ICT-related employment, and a large majority of the economic
benefit of ICT, is found beyond that definition, in other industries’ use of technology. This study
refers to non-ICT organizations to describe public sector organizations, government
institutions, international and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and companies
which use ICT in their work. However, their main products are not technology.
The global name for ICT’s wider use, and the source of experience for Gaza’s wider ICT
employment growth, is the digital economy. The digital economy is an international,
technological marketplace of communications and commerce. Unlike ICT-industry employment,
digital economy jobs may be located in any industry and out-sourced to any location. The study
of ICT adoption examines individual decisions to use new technologies and join the digital
economy, while ICT diffusion groups these decisions and seeks their patterns. In addition to
the commercial digital economy, ICT diffusion includes the non-traded public and individual
patterns of technology, each of which should represent more employment in Gaza: in schools, e-
government, or social networking.
Gaza’s current lack of wider ICT jobs, the opportunity gap, is discussed in Section 9. Upon
seeking a wider digital labor market, Gaza’s paradox comes into view: Gaza has thousands of
ICT graduates, wide individual adoption of some technologies including cellphones, but
an acutely under-developed digital economy. Studies of Gaza’s ICT sector all note the weak
demand for ICT in the local market, and comment on its disadvantage for ICT companies. From
an employment perspective, the weak digital economy is devastating: ICT jobs are not where
they should be.
Section 10 concludes with a very brief review of three forms of digital economy employment
which are missing from Gaza: the jobs that would follow from a strategy of ICT diffusion, the
concentrations of jobs that would be created by outsourcing, and the individual micro-work
which requires facilitation to become accessible to Gazans.
At the ends of Sections 7 to 10, a summary of each section’s observations and recommendations
can be found. These are compiled in Section 5.1 for quick access.
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Stakeholder discussions and input from graduates highlighted consistent confusion about ICT
specialties and how to prepare for them. In order to clarify some of this information, the report
includes two lengthy annexes. Annex 1 – What the Jobs Are: ICT Professions outlines the
content and educational qualifications for dozens of digital economy jobs. Annex 2 – How to
Prepare: ICT Fields of Study aims to sharpen discussions of skills, curricula and investments
in workforce preparedness, and more fundamentally, it aims to allow students to define and
pursue one set of qualifications through their education.
Annex 3 – Additional Data Tables holds more data related to Sections 7 and 9 than could be
included in the body of the report. For some data sets regional expert responses are also shown
for purposes of comparison.
6.2 Objectives
Mercy Corps outlined this study with the following objectives:
1. Describe current skills gaps and issues affecting employment in the ICT sector in the Gaza
Strip.
 Working Hypothesis: Gaza’s skills gap limits employment in Gaza’s ICT sector (as well as
limits success in the ICT sector).
2. Examine skills gaps and growth patterns in other digital economies.
 Working Hypothesis: Relevant examples from other countries can help evaluate and
respond to Gaza’s skill and opportunity gaps.
3. Formulate actionable recommendations to narrow the gap between Gaza’s ICT skills and
productive employment.
By approaching Gaza’s lack of ICT employment in this manner, the study aims to shed more
light, more actionably, on the urgent needs of Gaza’s new and recent ICT graduates.2
6.3 Study Methodology
Mercy Corps’ research was primarily qualitative, much of it descriptive. The following research
methods were used between January and March 2013.
 A desk review included studies of ICT human resources forecasting and labor market needs
assessments of the industry in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Canada, and Gaza.
The study also makes reference to a wide-ranging set of studies and other documentation,
which can be found in Annex 4 –Bibliography.
 Key informant interviews were conducted with the following respondents within Gaza:
 Eighteen representatives of ICT companies were interviewed. Interviewees also
completed detailed surveys about core ICT jobs and skills. These interviewees included
thirteen in the software and outsourcing sectors, three internet service providers and
communications companies, one ICT consultancy company, and one hardware company.
 Twenty representatives of non-ICT organizations were interviewed regarding their
employment of ICT staff and use of technology. These included fourteen from various
2 Readers will note that the entrepreneurial accelerator/incubator programs are not included here. Aside from a
number of references to the difficulty Gazans experience when starting a business, this study examines an
employment market rather than the entrepreneurial start-up ecosystem for self-employment.
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non-ICT industries (including construction and engineering, banks, tourism,
manufacturing, insurance and utilities), three from international and local NGOs, two
from hospitals, and one United Nations (UN) agency.
 Six representatives of universities and colleges were interviewed, as well as five
representatives from training centers.
 Four freelancers were interviewed. (In addition, one freelancer was interviewed solely for
a case study.)
 Focus group discussions were convened with the following participants within Gaza:
 Representatives of eleven ICT companies.
 Representatives of thirteen non-ICT organizations which employ ICT staff.
 Eight graduates of ICT degree programs.
 Eleven freelancers.
 Eight female graduates of ICT degree programs.
 Fourteen representatives of colleges, universities and training centers.
 Online surveys were completed by the following:
 141 Gazan graduates in ICT.
 Six regional ICT experts in Egypt (4) and Jordan (2). One expert in Germany also
contributed information.
6.4 Gaza’s ICT Sector and Environmental Factors
A number of documents have summarized the environment affecting the ICT sector in Gaza3
.
Here, a brief list will suffice to remind readers of the major factors which constrain and influence
Gaza’s ICT sector.
Political Factors:
 Repeated outbreaks of conflict, and chronic uncertainty regarding safety and security.
 A climate of high political risk that impedes investment and business confidence.
 Obstructed import of materials and export of goods, with most industries operating at a
fraction of their capacity.
 Severely limited and unreliable mobility (of people and goods), including access to the
West Bank, resulting in Gaza’s isolation from other countries and the West Bank.
Economic Factors:
 Strong regional growth and demand for ICT, with many multinational firms expanding
throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), including a growing
international ICT sector presence in the West Bank.
 Weak local demand for technology, including a weak understanding of technology as a
response to Gaza’s isolation.
 Chronic high unemployment, particularly for youth and women: In 2012, 32% of the
labor force in Gaza was unemployed.4
In the first quarter of 2012, 47% of women were
unemployed, and 58% of youth aged 20 to 24 were unemployed.5
3 See, for example, Solutions for Development Consulting Co., Palestinian ICT Private Sector 3-Year Strategy and
Development Plan, March 2012; PALiNVEST Corporation, Enabling Technology Sector Growth in Gaza - EnTeG² Base Line
Report, October 2011; Nicholas White, ICT Business Development: Market Opportunities in Gaza and Region, Mercy Corps
study, January 2012.
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 Poor access to venture or growth capital, impeding investment or maintenance of
existing technology. However, a donor focus on ICT makes other resources available at
times.
Social and Cultural Factors:
 Education is highly valued, producing a highly literate, multilingual, tech-savvy young
generation.
 In both study and work, women face serious obstacles to participation in the industry.
 The education system is producing graduates poorly equipped for ICT market demands.
 Diaspora and returning Palestinian communities are experienced and bring valuable
networks to ICT development.
Technological Factors:
 High individual ICT adoption, reasonable business computer ownership in larger
companies, but low rates of intensive ICT diffusion.
 Multiple infrastructure issues, including the quality of the network, availability of
electricity and bandwidth.
 ICT, with its rapid change, is an industry of niche opportunities.
 Poorly developed ICT enabling environment: of 14 MENA countries researched, the
enabling environments of only the West Bank and Gaza, Yemen and Iraq remained at
the lowest level of development from 2007 to 2011.6
Legal and Regulatory Factors:
 Absence of effective contract law, intellectual property protections, e-transactions laws,
and other business safeguards.
 Absence of a public policy to promote ICT, a national curriculum framework, or industry
standards.
 Difficulty starting businesses. The International Finance Corporation’s global survey of
doing business placed Gaza and the West Bank 179 out of 185 countries in the ease of
starting a business in 2012.7
The World Bank has recently summarized the importance and yet absence of ICT exports
growth in West Bank and Gaza as follows:
The structure of the Palestinian economy has substantially deteriorated since the late 90’s…. In
particular, the manufacturing sector, which is usually one of the key drivers of export-led growth,
has largely stagnated between 1994 and the present. Its share in GDP has dropped from 19
percent in 1994 to 10 percent in 2011. To make things worse, the rapid decline in
manufacturing has not been replaced by the growth of high value-added service exports such as
Information Technology (IT) services and tourism.8
4 World Bank Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, Fiscal Challenges and Long Term Economic Costs: Economic Monitoring Report,
March 19, 2013, page 5.
5 United Nations, Gaza in 2020 a liveable place?, August 2012.
6 Jenna White, Jason Saul, Cheryl Davenport, Cisco Pioneers Market Development Approach in Palestine, Cisco, November
2012, page 37. Subsequently referenced as “Cisco”.
7 International Finance Corporation and World Bank, Doing Business Project, Economy Rankings, available at:
http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings.
8 World Bank, supra, page 12.
9

During the first three quarters of 2012, the same report estimates that ICT contributed 0.56% to
the real gross domestic product (GDP) growth of the West Bank, and a mere 0.02% to the real
GDP growth of Gaza.9
This introduction has sketched a context for the research that follows. Gaza’s ICT sector is
small and highly challenged, and it is not expanding at a rate of any comfort to Gaza’s
thousands of unemployed ICT graduates. The industry’s growth and the resulting
employment is socially and economically important.
9 World Bank, supra, page 4.
10

11
Box 1 – Perspectives on the Skills Gap
From the Online Survey of Graduates:
 The minimum skills and qualifications of the jobs are very high and graduates cannot
fulfill them.
 Graduates have no practical experience, and most companies ask for at least two to
three years of experience.
 We are lost because there are too many ICT technologies and programming languages.
It is very difficult for an ICT graduate to determine which to focus and concentrate on.
 There are some required programming languages in the market that are not taught in the
university.
 New graduates do not have the soft skills required in the labor market.
 We wish that the ICT programs were more specific and that students have the chance to
be more specialized through their study.
 It doesn’t make sense that a student studies for five years in university, then he has to
have training courses for another two years to be qualified for a job.
From the Freelancers’ Focus Group:
 [There are] few job opportunities and a lack of experience, so you must go to freelancing
to gain the required experience to get a job.
From the Graduates’ Focus Group:
 I am frustrated. The education that I received at my university did not prepare me for
the market demands. I had to attend many technical courses to fulfill the ICT firm’s
requirements. I believe that the university labs are poor.
 I believe that my university education prepared me for the market. The university
education made me capable to read any book.
 I believe that universities must have… an academic supervisor… to assist the graduates
so they are able to choose their own career path.
 I believe that ICT firms are not able to clarify their requirements, so they ask for too
many skills and training courses in their post advertisements.
From the Higher Education Institutions’ Focus Group:
 The high evolution in the ICT market is much faster than the revision and update of our
curricula.
 Our students are like clay, if you press on them, they will break down.
 The instructor or trainer must be from the market, and teaching methodology should
discuss a variety of realistic case studies.
7. Describing the Skills Gap
This section of the study aims to actionably describe the current skills gap in Gaza’s ICT labor
market. There has been a tendency among sector actors (including contributors to this study) to
describe the gap between education and employment as a local phenomenon, but a skills gap is a
common labor market occurrence. A skills gap consists of the difference between the package of
skills sought by employers and the package offered by job applicants. The employable skills
11

package consists of technical skills, business skills, soft or non-technical skills, and experience.10
To quantify Gaza’s skills gap, the study compares research responses from the learning sector
(universities, colleges and training centers), employers (both ICT companies and non-ICT
organizations), and ICT professionals (both freelance professionals and graduates in general).
7.1 Employer Preferences, Employee Demographics
The 18 ICT companies interviewed for this research employ a total of 309 full-time and 98 part-
time staff, of whom 255 are ICT professionals. The ICT professionals include 31 diploma-
holders, 192 university or college bachelors and 20 ICT professionals holding masters or higher
post-graduate qualifications. Two-thirds of the ICT companies prefer university to college
degrees because they represent a longer period of study, although several interviewees indicated
that they feel the qualifications are similar.
Of those ICT professionals 79, or 31%, are women. This is more than double the rate at which
women are hired into ICT positions in non-ICT organizations, and the ICT sector represents an
unusual opportunity for women in Gaza. The experience of female ICT professionals still differs
from that of their male counterparts, as outlined in Section 9.4
ICT companies were asked to rate the importance they placed upon the following aspects of the
skills package when hiring. (1 = not at all important, 5 = very important.)
Table 2 – Aspects of the Skills Package11
Skill or Qualification Importance
Technical Skills 4.21
Business Skills 3.60
Experience 3.60
Academic Degree 3.20
Certifications 2.80
Source: Mercy Corps Interviews, 2013
Asked for their level of satisfaction with recently-graduated ICT employees, ICT companies
report as follows (1 = very weak, 5 = excellent):
Table 3 – Satisfaction with Recent ICT Graduate-Employees
Area of Performance Satisfaction
Theoretical Knowledge 3.13
Time Required to Become Effective in the
Company
2.64
Practical Skills 1.93
Business skills 1.67
ICT employers appear to be more merit-driven than their non-ICT counterparts in Gaza,
and they report generally low satisfaction with the qualities of the staff they hire. As will
10 The term “business skills” will be used throughout this study to describe a wide set of non-ICT skills, including
soft skills such as communication and teamwork.
11 Throughout the report, the largest response to each research question will be highlighted in bold
12

13
be seen in Section 8, regional and global employers share the sense that ICT graduates are not
well equipped for the needs of the ICT sector.
7.2 Technical Skills, Core Jobs and Priorities in ICT
Companies
7.2.1 Core ICT Job Roles
This section presents the views of 18 of Gaza’s ICT companies, interviewed on aspects of
technical market demand. At times, the views of other sector actors are shown for comparison,
but primarily, this is an inside view of Gaza’s local ICT sector demand. It shows the gap between
employer demand and graduates’ skills in Gaza. To outline the gap, each aspect of the ICT skills
package is represented here in at least four dimensions, as illustrated in the example below.
Table 4 – Sample Dashboard, Core ICT Job Roles
ICT Job Role
Time Trends Workforce Staff Skills Graduates' Proficiency
Decreasing
Importance
StableImportance
IncreasingImportance
None/Inadequate
Enough/Surplus
None/Theoretical
Applied/Expert
NoSkills
Theoreticalonly
Theoretical&Applied
Expert
Application Developer 0% 33% 67% 35% 65% 6% 94% 29% 71% 0% 0%
Test Specialist 12% 29% 59% 94% 6% 87% 13% 88% 12% 0% 0%
Multimedia Specialist 18% 47% 35% 56% 44% 39% 61% 25% 62% 6% 6%
The four dimensions can be explained as follows:
Time Trends: Each ICT company interviewee was asked whether the importance of a skill or
job role was likely to increase, decrease or remain stable over the coming two to three years. The
resulting time trends capture anticipated changes in market demand. This information can help
to direct training choices, but alone it is not sufficient to identify a promising path of study.
Workforce: Interviewees were asked to evaluate the adequacy of Gaza’s current workforce, the
existing pool of talent for each core job or skill. Workforce adequacy suggests whether there is
enough skilled competition to meet market demand.
Staff Skill: Interviewees were asked to evaluate the skills of their existing staff within their own
company. The adequacy of existing skills helps to indicate whether the company is likely to feel
content, or feel the need to hire additional professionals to offset weaknesses in their skills base.
Graduates’ Proficiency: Interviewees were asked to evaluate the skills of recent ICT graduates.
From these four dimensions, the opportunity and skill gaps can be understood. For example, in
Table 4 above, the opportunity profile for Application Developer looks positive. Demand is
expected to increase – in fact, no interviewee found this to be an unimportant job for the near
13

future. However, two-thirds of interviewees felt that the workforce was sufficient or
oversupplied. While nearly three-quarters of graduates have theoretical skills in this area, the ICT
companies overwhelmingly include experts in the field already. This profile outlines a highly
competitive marketplace for developers, with growing opportunity and plenty of people chasing
it.
The following core ICT jobs were found to have a similarly competitive profile:
Table 5 – Competitive Opportunities, Core ICT Job Roles
ICT Job Role
Decreasing
Importance
StableImportance
None/Inadequate
Enough/Surplus
None/Theoretical
Applied/Expert
NoSkills
Theoreticalonly
Theoretical&Applied
Expert
Project Manager 6% 22% 72% 83% 17% 22% 78% 94% 6% 0% 0%
Application Developer 0% 33% 67% 35% 65% 6% 94% 29% 71% 0% 0%
Database Application
Administrator
0% 33% 67% 35% 65% 18% 82% 47% 41% 12% 0%
System Programmer 13% 31% 56% 65% 35% 35% 65% 59% 35% 6% 0%
Systems Analyst 6% 23% 71% 76% 24% 24% 76% 71% 29% 0% 0%
Compare this with the profile of Test Specialist in Table 4. ICT companies found its importance
more mixed but one-third believe it will grow, suggesting a significant market opportunity.
Regardless of the size of that future market, the current workforce was strongly considered to be
inadequate to meet demand, and it was also strongly clear that the existing staff of ICT
companies lack experienced or expert skills in this field. The skills gap prevents this opportunity
from being realized, as only 12% of graduates have even theoretical skills to hone in the
marketplace. This profile outlines a missed opportunity, market demand unmet by virtue of a
skills gap.
The following core ICT jobs were found to have the most significant skill gaps: Test Specialist,
Security Services Specialist, Quality Assurance Specialist, Portals and Collaborations Specialist.
For these jobs, future importance was steady or increasing to at least 85% of interviewees; the
workforce was considered adequate or oversupplied by 19% or fewer of interviewees; and
existing ICT staff had expert skills in 13 to 50% of the companies responding. Only 6 to 18%
percent of graduates were considered to have theoretical skills on which to build.
14

15
Table 6 – Identified Skills Gap, Core ICT Job Roles
ICT Job Role
Decreasing
Importance
StableImportance
None/Inadequate
Enough/Surplus
None/Theoretical
Applied/Expert
NoSkills
Theoreticalonly
Theoretical&Applied
Expert
Test Specialist 12% 29% 59% 94% 6% 87% 13% 88% 12% 0% 0%
Security Service Specialist 0% 6% 94% 88% 12% 71% 29% 82% 18% 0% 0%
Portals & Collaboration Specialist 15% 39% 46% 81% 19% 50% 50% 88% 12% 0% 0%
Quality Assurance Specialist 0% 29% 71% 88% 12% 71% 29% 94% 6% 0% 0%
The third profile in Table 4 is that of Multimedia Specialist. This is a more mixed profile. The
time trends are still positive for this job, but opinion is more divided as to the adequacy of the
existing workforce. A majority of graduates have skills to bring to this work, but nearly the same
proportion of firms already includes experts in the field. This is a profile of moderate
opportunity, and of moderate competition for the opportunities. Similar profiles were found for
Graphic Design and Network Administrator, per the table below.
Table 7 – Moderate Opportunities, Core ICT Job Roles
ICT Job Role
Decreasing
Importance
StableImportance
Increasing
Importance
None/Inadequate
Enough/Surplus
None/Theoretical
Applied/Expert
NoSkills
Theoreticalonly
Theoretical&
Applied
Expert
Network Administrator 13% 40% 47% 29% 71% 21% 79% 53% 35% 12% 0%
Multimedia Specialist 18% 47% 35% 56% 44% 39% 61% 25% 62% 6% 6%
Graphic Design Specialist 6% 41% 53% 35% 65% 31% 69% 24% 71% 0% 6%
All of the core job profiles reveal patterns in graduates’ skills: they are following the market, not
anticipating its emerging needs, as illustrated by the table below. The areas where graduates lack
skills mirror the areas where the workforce is also lacking those skills.
15

Table 8 – Graduates’ Skills Patterns
ICT Job Role
Workforce Graduates' Proficiency
None/
Inadequate
Enough/
Surplus
NoSkills
Theoretical
only
Theoretical
&Applied
Expert
Project Manager 83% 17% 94% 6% 0% 0%
Quality Assurance Specialist 88% 12% 94% 6% 0% 0%
Test Specialist 94% 6% 88% 12% 0% 0%
Portals & Collaboration Specialist 81% 19% 88% 12% 0% 0%
Security Service Specialist 88% 12% 82% 18% 0% 0%
Systems Analyst 76% 24% 71% 29% 0% 0%
System Programmer 65% 35% 59% 35% 6% 0%
Network Administrator 29% 71% 53% 35% 12% 0%
Database Application Administrator 35% 65% 47% 41% 12% 0%
Application Developer 35% 65% 29% 71% 0% 0%
Multimedia Specialist 56% 44% 25% 62% 6% 6%
Graphic Design Specialist 35% 65% 24% 71% 0% 6%
In the five job areas where graduates are considered to have the most skill, the existing
workforce is considered to be adequate or oversupplied. In the seven job areas where the
workforce is inadequate – where opportunity exists with less competition - graduates are
considered to have far fewer skills to offer. This consistent time lag suggests either that market
trend information is not actionably and swiftly reaching the learning sector, or that students are
not aware of emerging trends and study paths that lead toward opportunity.
The full dashboard and additional data tables, which appear in Annex 3, also include ICT
companies’ evaluations of the importance of certifications to many of these fields, and the
responses of regional interviewees to some of the same questions. Annex 1 details many of the
core jobs themselves, their responsibilities and study paths, and Annex 2 outlines the fields of
computer study as organized internationally.
7.2.2 Core ICT Skills
Globally, ICT rewards specialization but few careers are built around a single expertise. An ICT
professional may specialize in a small number of skill areas, be proficient in several others, and
may have passing knowledge of a wider range of skills or languages. In a small marketplace like
Gaza, and in a fast-changing industry, both the ICT companies and individual professionals are
challenged to acquire depth and agility. ICT companies seek a wide range of skills as their
markets tend to be shallow and broad, but not every expanding skills area will be relevant to
every firm. In such a market, skill priorities can also change rapidly with new opportunities.
Therefore, the skills described here are not exclusive career paths. They are areas of expertise,
although a few do overlap with core ICT jobs.
16

17
Highly Competitive Skills are those which combine a clear and growing market opportunity
with a view from at least 50% of the interviewees that the wider workforce is
sufficient/oversupplied, and a view from at least 50% of the interviewees that the company’s
own workforce already includes experts. Into these competitive areas at least two-thirds of
graduates bring theoretical or applied skills, and some are considered experts as they join the
competition.
The table below lists highly competitive ICT skills as outlined by the 18 ICT company
interviewees, and adds the average of responses from 141 recent ICT graduates who indicated
their own perceived starting skills in a number of areas (1 = very weak, 5 = excellent).12
Table 9 – Highly Competitive Skills
Core ICT Skills
Graduates
(Online
Survey)
Decreasing
Importance
StableImportance
None/Inadequate
Enough/Surplus
None/Theoretical
Applied/Expert
NoSkills
Theoreticalonly
Theoretical&Applied
Expert
Self-RatingofSkills
HTML4-
5+CSS+JavaScript
0% 12% 88% 50% 50% 15% 85% 33% 50% 8% 8% -
PHP 6% 6% 88% 29% 71% 12% 88% 14% 64% 14% 7% 2.9
ASP.Net 14% 15% 71% 29% 71% 46% 54% 7% 57% 29% 7% 3.3
Database Platform
MySQL
6% 35% 59% 20% 80% 6% 94% 27% 53% 20% 0% 2.8
Windows Platforms 6% 47% 47% 14% 86% 7% 93% 0% 71% 21% 7% 2.6
Source: Mercy Corps Interviews and Graduate Survey, 2013
A second set of opportunities, also promising in the marketplace, suffers from the graduates’
skills gap. The Skills Gap profile is defined by growth trends as clear as those in the highly
competitive group, with a workforce considered inadequate by at least two-thirds of the
interviewees. However, in the table below, the profile of the company’s own skills is much more
mixed, and only in the area of Systems Analysis and Design is it overwhelmingly strong.
Distinguishing this skills gap group are the graduates’ lower rates of starting skills. As with Linux,
.NET and Java, graduates do bring significant skills to these areas of opportunity – but these are
growth areas, with more potential than is being met. Perl should also be considered to have a
skills gap, although its market is thought by half of the interviewees to be declining. The Perl
workforce was universally considered to be inadequate, and graduates were universally found to
lack skills. In fact, one respondent to the graduate online survey highlighted the lack of courses
to learn Perl.
12 Graduates were not asked to assess as many skills as the ICT companies, so some categories lack a graduate figure.
17

Table 10 – Identified Skills Gap
Core ICT Skills
Graduates
(Online
Survey)
Decreasing
Importance
StableImportance
None/Inadequate
Enough/Surplus
None/Theoretical
Applied/Expert
NoSkills
Theoreticalonly
Theoretical&Applied
Expert
Self-RatingofSkills
Linux 6% 5% 89% 64% 36% 33% 67% 46% 54% 0% 0% 3.9
Quality Assurance 0% 12% 88% 100% 0% 71% 29% 100% 0% 0% 0%
Mobile Platforms 6% 6% 88% 93% 7% 71% 29% 86% 7% 7% 0% 3.7
Programming/Coding
Standards
13% 34% 53% 85% 15% 47% 53% 77% 15% 8% 0%
.NET Platform 0% 50% 50% 75% 25% 33% 67% 42% 50% 8% 0% 3.4
Database platform
Oracle
12% 41% 47% 64% 36% 43% 57% 69% 23% 8% 0%
Programing Language
Java
6% 31% 63% 79% 21% 54% 46% 29% 36% 36% 0% 2.5
Software Testing 13% 31% 56% 100% 0% 43% 57% 85% 15% 0% 0%
Systems Analysis &
Design
0% 29% 71% 79% 21% 19% 81% 86% 14% 0% 0% 2.5
Perl 50% 30% 20% 100% 0% 86% 14% 100% 0% 0% 0%
A smaller group of skills was found to offer Moderate Opportunity. These skills still show a
very positive time-trend, while workforce adequacy and the companies’ existing staff groups are
both quite competitive. In these areas, graduates show stronger skills emerging, and a
consistently ‘good’ sense of their own skills.
18

19
Table 11 – Moderate Opportunity Skills
Core ICT Skills
Graduates
(Online
Survey)
Decreasing
Importance
StableImportance
None/Inadequate
Enough/Surplus
None/Theoretical
Applied/Expert
NoSkills
Theoreticalonly
Theoretical&Applied
Expert
Self-RatingofSkills
JAVA Platform 25% 19% 56% 64% 36% 36% 64% 21% 64% 14% 0% 3.0
Database Platform
Microsoft SQL-Server
14% 43% 43% 43% 57% 17% 83% 25% 67% 8% 0% 3.0
Programing Lang. C# 17% 50% 33% 57% 43% 57% 43% 43% 21% 36% 0% 3.1
A final group of skills shows clearly Declining Importance, with roughly two-thirds of ICT
company interviewees believing that their importance is diminishing. Unfortunately, these three
skills also show the most positive assessment of graduates’ skills. As with the ICT core jobs
assessment, ICT graduates are following market trends, rather than anticipating
emerging opportunities.
Table 12 – Skills of Declining Importance
Core ICT Skills
Time Trends Workforce Staff Skills
Graduates'
Proficiency
Graduates
(Online
Survey)
Decreasing
Importance
StableImportance
None/Inadequate
Enough/Surplus
None/Theoretical
Applied/Expert
NoSkills
Theoreticalonly
Theoretical&Applied
Expert
Self-RatingofSkills
Programing Lang.
C++
62% 23% 15% 64% 36% 67% 33% 20% 33% 47% 0% 2.9
Programing Lang.
Visual Basic
62% 23% 15% 21% 79% 46% 54% 27% 20% 53% 0% 3.0
Programing Lang. C 69% 23% 8% 71% 29% 70% 30% 7% 36% 57% 0% 2.9
Additional skills dashboards will be found in Annex 3 for hardware maintenance and network
skills, general and ICT strategic consulting, as well as the full dashboard for core ICT technical
skills.
Sections 7.2.1 and 7.2.2 have reviewed the core ICT jobs and technical skills. In each field, they
have outlined areas of clear and competitive opportunity, moderate opportunity and diminishing
19

opportunity. Within that range, they have also established sets of jobs and skills whose
opportunities are unrealized due to a skills gap among graduates. In both jobs and technical
skills, it is evident that graduates’ skills are following rather than anticipating market
needs, as current graduate skills correlate most strongly to market demands which are
already fully supplied, over-supplied or of declining importance. The need for improved
trend information is strikingly clear. These findings aim to sharpen the resource priorities and
study paths, and to offer clear market information to the learning sector so that emerging
opportunities might be better addressed. The findings are summarized in the table below.
Table 13 – Summary of Job and Skills Categories
Category Core ICT Jobs Core ICT Skills
Competitive
(potential + existing
skills in the
workforce)
Project Manager
HTML4-5+CSS+JavaScript
Application Developer PHP
Database Application Administrator ASP.Net
System Programmer Database Platform MySQL
Systems Analyst Windows Platforms
Identified Skills Gap
(potential exists, but
graduates lack
skills)
Test Specialist Linux
Security Service Specialist Quality Assurance
Portals & Collaboration Specialist Mobile Platforms
Quality Assurance Specialist Programming Codes Standards
.NET Platform
Database platform Oracle
Programing Language Java
Software Testing
Systems Analysis & Design
Perl
Moderate
Opportunity
Multimedia Specialist JAVA Platform
Graphic Design
Database Platform Microsoft SQL-
Server
Network Administrator Programing Language C#
Declining Market
Importance and
Opportunity
Programing language C++
Programing Language Visual Basic
Programing Language C
7.2.3 Applications of ICT
ICT is an applied science, and this study will repeatedly note weaknesses in the learning and skills
of graduates regarding the objects of ICT’s application. Simply put, graduates are not directed
to learn about the problems for which ICT proposes solutions.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) is an international professional
association dedicated to technological innovation and excellence, with over 400,000 members in
160 countries. It is a leading source of both educational and professional working standards, and
its guidelines offer one source of reasonable, global expectations of curricula and graduate
knowledge. A number of its recommendations will be noted throughout this report. The IEEE
considers “awareness of the broad applicability of computing” to be a core skill required of ICT
education.13
13 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Association for Computing Machinery, Computer Science
Curricula 2013, Ironman Draft, February 2013, page 21.
20

21
There are two labor market perspectives on the applications of ICT: 1) that of the ICT-
producing industry (ICT companies) which views other industries as clients, and 2) that of the
other industries (non-ICT organizations) themselves. The data in this section is drawn from ICT
companies and refers their perceived opportunities to market into Gaza’s other industries, as well
as the survey of graduates. Section 9 will discuss the ICT usage and employment potential of
non-ICT organizations themselves.
Creating the same dashboard (which, in Annex 3 is supplemented with additional information
on certifications for some of these applications), Mercy Corps established three groups of
applied ICT skills.
First, the Skills Gap group describes a profile of high opportunity currently, unrealized due to
the absence of graduate and workforce skills (Table 14 below). These applications of ICT were
anticipated to remain stable or increase by more than 90% of the ICT company interviewees, and
at least two-thirds also felt that the workforce was insufficient. Staff skills existed in one-third to
two-thirds of the ICT companies. With the exception of school management, ICT graduates
thoroughly lacked the skills to join in this growth.
Table 14 – Skills Gap in ICT Applications
ICT
Applications
Graduates
(Online Survey)
Decreasing
Importance
StableImportance
None/Inadequate
Enough/Surplus
None/Theoretical
Applied/Expert
NoSkills
Theoreticalonly
Theoretical&Applied
Expert
Self-RatingofSkills
Enterprise
Resource
Planning (ERP)
0% 18% 82% 100% 0% 40% 60% 100% 0% 0% 0%
NGO
Management
0% 17% 83% 64% 36% 64% 36% 100% 0% 0% 0%
School
Management
0% 25% 75% 82% 18% 44% 56% 67% 22% 11% 0%
Human
Resource
Management
7% 36% 57% 86% 14% 40% 60% 92% 0% 8% 0% 3.47
Hotels and
Restaurants
8% 54% 38% 75% 25% 60% 40% 90% 10% 0% 0%
The second group of skills is also very promising, but somewhat more Competitive. They do
not reach the ‘highly’ competitive statistics of earlier sections. See Table 15 below.
21

Table 15 – Competitive ICT Applications
ICT
Applications
Graduates'
Proficiency
Graduates
(Online Survey)
Decreasing
Importance
StableImportance
None/Inadequate
Enough/Surplus
None/Theoretical
Applied/Expert
NoSkills
Theoreticalonly
Theoretical&Applied
Expert
Self-RatingofSkills
Point of Sale
(POS)
0% 45% 55% 31% 69% 50% 50% 82% 9% 9% 0%
Financial
Management
Information
Systems (FMIS)
0% 15% 85% 23% 77% 50% 50% 80% 20% 0% 0%
Three ICT applications show Moderate or Declining Opportunity, per the table below.
Table 16 – Moderate and Declining ICT Applications
ICT
Application
Graduates'
Proficiency
Graduates
(Online Survey)
Decreasing
Importance
StableImportance
None/Inadequate
Enough/Surplus
None/Theoretical
Applied/Expert
NoSkills
Theoreticalonly
Theoretical&Applied
Expert
Self-RatingofSkills
Multimedia 19% 31% 50% 33% 67% 25% 75% 22% 78% 0% 0% 3.49
Games 23% 23% 54% 90% 10% 57% 43% 78% 22% 0% 0%
Web Design 0% 19% 81% 8% 92% 7% 93% 9% 82% 9% 0% 3.08
Web Design is clearly oversupplied, and graduates will surely add to the current competition
since this is among their strongest skills area. Games and multimedia should be seen as moderate
opportunities, still with potential and in the case of games, with a clearly inadequate workforce.
Yet again, the areas with moderate-to-weak market prospects are the areas with (by far)
the strongest graduate proficiency.
22

23
7.2.4 The Importance of Certifications
Certification demonstrates that a professional has attained an industry-standard level of
knowledge of a given product or process. The rate of professional ICT certification is low in
Gaza, although certifications for branded, proprietary software are increasing. Certification is a
way to provide or prove quality assurance. However, certifications can also be expensive, time-
consuming and to many Gazan professionals they appear to be of uncertain value.
In interviews Mercy Corps asked ICT companies for their opinions on the importance of 21
professional certificates. Interviewees were asked to rate the impact or influence of certification
upon their hiring decisions. Here, the emerging importance of certifications to recruitment is
illustrated. (Additional data on certifications can be found in Annex 3.)
Table 17 – Impact of Certification on Recruitment
Certificates
No/LowImpact
Important/Required
Oracle 62% 38%
ICDL 67% 33%
Google Standards 73% 27%
Adobe 75% 25%
Microsoft 83% 17%
CISCO 38% 62%
Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) 62% 38%
Security Professional 67% 33%
CISSP Certified Information Systems 75% 25%
Linux+ 75% 25%
Security+ 75% 25%
A+ 80% 20%
Linux Professional Institute Certified Level (LPICL) 82% 18%
Certified Wireless Technology Specialist (CWTS) 83% 17%
Certified Wireless Network Engineer (CWNE) 83% 17%
VCP ( VMware Certified Professional ) 86% 14%
Certified Wireless Network Administrator (CWNA) 86% 14%
Network+ 86% 14%
Project Management Professional (PMP) 67% 33%
Certified Information Security Manager(CISM) 66% 33%
Certified Associate in Project Management ( CAPM) 89% 11%
23

The certification discussion is quite new in Gaza. The table above illustrates that while
certifications remain unimportant to a majority of employers, several certifications are becoming
acknowledged, notably those of Cisco whose programs in the West Bank and Gaza have raised
awareness of its products and standards. A freelancer commented in the research focus group
that, “There is no need for freelancers to have an international certificate in one of the ICT
subjects to work as a freelancer. He needs only skills.” That may be less true for ICT graduates
searching for fulltime employment or, at least, it may be that certification represents a
competitive advantage in a job search.
7.3 Business Skills
Business skills include a wide set of non-ICT competencies. Many business skills are professions
in their own right, such as Project Management or Business Analysis. Gaza’s business skills gap is
much commented on, but it is difficult to outline usefully. Graduates pointed out in focus groups
that ICT employers seek a very wide range of business skills, and this is additionally true of
smaller companies whose staff must fill a variety of roles or work in a number of competencies.
ICT and non-ICT employers also prioritize different skill sets to reflect a different deployment
of ICT professionals within their workplaces. Therefore, it is not useful to say that a certain
business skill is most lacking. The question should be, “Who needs which skill most?” Training
should increasingly be targeted this way, with curricula developed for specific professions such
as: Communications for Quality Assurance, or Problem Solving for Security Specialists.
The priority of each business skill depends on an individual’s career path within ICT. Students,
knowing their specialty and likely employers, should understand which business skills to
cultivate. However, through the research process, graduates repeatedly noted their difficulty in
specializing and planning a study path, including any planning for their appropriate business
skills priorities. As a result, graduates are likely to have a generalized level of business skills rather
than a focused specialty.
Because there is no single, generic market demand for business skills and no single correct skill
to study, there would be little gained by replicating the dashboard method for business skills.
Instead, this section explores the learning sector’s ability to prepare students for the different
skills that employers prioritize. To compile perspectives on the business skills gap, both ICT
companies and non-ICT organizations were asked in their interviews to rate the importance of
each skill to their company. (1 = not important, 5 = very important.) Interviewees from HEI
were asked, “To what degree does your institution contribute to the ICT graduates’ skills?” in
each area. (1 = very weak, 5 = distinguished.) Graduates responding to the online survey were
asked to “rate the skills that you gained through undergraduate study”.
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25
Table 18 – Business Skills Gap
Business Skill
Employer
Importance
Higher
Education/
Training
Institutions
Graduates'
Perceived Skills
(Online Survey)
Gap
Classification
ICTCompaniesImportance
non-ICTOrganizations
Importance
University/College
TrainingCenter
Veryweak/Weak/
Moderate
Verygood/Excellent
Business Analysis 2.9 4.1 2.5 2.2 60% 40%
High Skills Gap
Creative Thinking 4.5 3.6 2.7 3.8 57% 43%
Problem Solving 4.5 4.2 2.5 3.3 53% 47%
Professional Ethics 4.6 4 3 3.8 30% 70%
Communications 4.4 3.9 3 3 48% 52%
Teamwork 4.7 4.2 3.2 3.8 33% 67%
Customer Service 3.9 3.1 2.5 3.4 66% 34%
Moderate Skills Gap
Planning 3.4 3.8 2.7 3.9 52% 48%
English Language 3.4 3.1 2.2 2.8 54% 46%
Project Management 3.3 3.6 2.8 3.6 65% 35%
Change Management 3.4 3.6 2 2.8 62% 38%
Technical Writing 3.8 3.3 3.2 2.4 47% 53%
Low Skills GapMarketing / Sales 3.4 2.2 2.8 3.6 73% 27%
Presentation 3.3 2.8 3.3 4.1 40% 60%
The table above aims to highlight priority areas where the learning sector does not feel able to
contribute on a level equal to employers’ requirements, as well as areas where graduates feel less
confident about meeting employers’ expectations. It should be noted that low scores do not
reflect a failure to understand the importance of a skill. Rather, they indicate a lack of confidence
to respond to market demands. Business skills can be clustered into three groups as follows:
The High Skills Gap describes a significant gap (greater than 0.9) between employers’ emphasis
and the learning sector’s ability to contribute. Curriculum design and training resources should
be drawn to these areas to close the gap. In two areas, Business Analysis and Creative Thinking,
the priorities are substantially different for employment in the ICT or non-ICT sectors.
The Moderate Skills Gap describes skills of moderate importance to employers and/or those
which show only a moderate gap between demand and the learning sectors’ ability and
confidence to deliver skills. These skills are still important, but the skills gap is less urgent. It
should be noted that, while English is only listed as a moderate priority by Gaza’s employers,
25

regional studies of sectors which export successfully agree that it is essential to ICT firms which
seek to work internationally.
The Low Skills Gap describes skills of less importance to employers and/or those with a lower
gap between demand and the ability to deliver. The skills may be very important to some forms
of employment, but the gap is not an urgent priority for attention and resources.
A second form of the business skills gap is revealed in this table: graduates’ confidence in their
own skills does not match the contributions perceived by either university/college or training
center interviewees. Therefore a skills gap (or perception of a skills gap) currently exists between
graduates and their (prospective or present) employers, and between graduates and their
institutions of higher learning.
Table 18 above shows that employers value a large and diverse set of skills, some of which are
very complex to acquire. It also shows that Gaza’s university/college interviewees felt distinctly
less able to contribute to graduates’ business skills than their training center colleagues. This
should not be surprising, given the non-academic nature of many of these skills; how many truly
creative thinkers attribute their skill to a university classroom?
Skills grow from learning but are refined with use and the exercise of judgment to adapt learning
to real situations: knowledge becomes skill only with practice. There is an inherent weakness
in any plan to train young professionals in a classroom environment removed from the
workplace. Effective skills training integrates knowledge, application and evaluation. The
following section looks at several methods which aim to offer graduates a more integrated form
of learning and experience.
7.4 Experience and Projects
A professional requires theoretical knowledge, applied experience and the judgment which
accumulates over a lifetime. In Gaza, ICT experience can be difficult to attain. Gazan graduates
need enough experience to get through their first employer’s door, among the thousands who
are competing with them to do the same thing.
Students are intended to gain experience by doing their senior year projects. Graduates compete
for places in internship programs or simply work unpaid, and entrepreneurs undergo guided
experience in incubation programs. In the course of research, many critiques were offered of
these programs, at times conflicting (particularly between the requests for more and longer
internships, and the view that internships do not work). A number of the comments might be
summed up by saying that the experience-related programs are not effectively addressing some
underlying skills issues, although some placements clearly succeed. An integrated training
delivery system is lacking.
26

27
7.4.1 Undergraduate Academic Projects
In their final year of university, graduates undertake individual projects which account for a
number of their study hours and credits. The availability of market-relevant projects is important
to the graduates’ market-readiness upon graduation. These projects mark one opportunity for
academia to collaborate with future employers, and for students to work beyond computer labs.
The collaboration is not always simple. Among non-ICT respondents to this research, most said
they would not host students as trainees in ICT (although most do accept students in other
specializations) because they feel the students are a burden to the company, with a study focus
far from their own specialty.
Universities report themselves as being willing and intending to partner more thoroughly with
the private sector for projects, on-the-job training, summer training or other practical
supplements to the curriculum. The university/college focus group listed graduate projects first
among their methods to equip students with business skills. However, employers noted that
short-term student engagement can be draining for host companies.
Graduate focus groups revealed some disappointment that their professors did not undertake
assessments or otherwise involve themselves closely in projects, so as to maximize their value.
Mercy Corps is in the second year of sponsoring the Advisory Committee for Education and
Training (ACET), a tripartite dialogue between the public, private and academic ICT actors.
ACET has facilitated an agreement between the Palestinian IT Association (PITA) and a number
of universities to examine this issue among others. A more intensive working partnership
between Gaza’s HEI and its private sector would be a very positive development.
Box 19 – Perspectives on Internships and Academic Projects
From the Online Survey of Graduates:
 Graduates who get experience through internships should be given permanent jobs.
From the Freelancers’ Focus Group:
 Graduates consider the incubators as temporary alternatives to a job. As soon as
they find a job, they give up the incubator.
From the ICT Companies’ Focus Group:
 Internships and job-creation programs contribute to 70% of the employee resources
in my company. I am used to attracting distinct/qualified interns from such
programs.
 We used to host ICT-graduates during their graduation projects, and then we
attracted distinct/qualified students.
 Internship programs give graduates insufficient work experiences and poor skills
enhancement.
From the Higher Education Institutions’ Focus Group:
 I wish donors would stop short-term internships and replace them with establishing
tech-parks instead.
27

7.4.2 Internships
Internships are a form of work experience, placing graduates into companies for two to six
months with a full or partial subsidy. Graduates gain experience, and employers receive the
benefits of their work at little or no cost. Internships are widely offered in Gaza on a variety of
terms. Some are a form of cash-for-work, while others are distinctly market-led. These activities
do not have the same objectives, which can cause confusion when a recipient of a cash-for-
internship opportunity seeks a market-based-internship outcome. The range of internship
models makes direct comparison difficult.
The length of internships drew the most comments from research respondents, all preferring
longer periods. Some non-ICT organizations proposed a period of on-the-job-training to
precede internships. Comments did not address employers’ willingness to contribute financially
to the cost of longer internships, which is one obstacle to extending internship periods.
The very large volume of applications to Mercy Corps’ and other internship programs suggests
that internships are widely sought after and valued, but not uncritically. A detailed enquiry was
beyond the scope of this study. However, Mercy Corps has placed 87 ICT graduates into a wide
range of companies in the past two years and has much anecdotal experience to offer. This
experience suggests that more and longer internships will not alone resolve the underlying skills-
related issues which can limit the effectiveness of work experience. The box below highlights
some of the common issues found through Mercy Corps’ ICT internship program.
7.4.3 Freelancers, the Self-Directed Professionals
Freelancers form a very flexible category of ICT professionals, and many ICT professionals will
freelance at some stage of their career (or concurrently with other employment). Eleven percent
Box 20 – Common Issues in Mercy Corps’ ICT Internships
 Non-ICT employers may not understand the specialization or collaborative nature of
ICT production. They ask to employ a generalist, without understanding that ICT
specialists work together. Employers may be disappointed with a new graduate’s
generalist product, while interns may feel unable to complete less-known phases of
project work alone.
 Students do not learn ICT as an applied science: interns enter business without
understanding business metrics, analysis or issues. Interns are not equipped to
propose ICT solutions, and employers may not know what those solutions can offer
their businesses. In those situations, the ICT potential is unlikely to be realized.
 Non-ICT organizations sometimes apply ICT skills to enhance conventional
processes or marketing; for example, designers may be hired to improve a paper
brochure. Employers do not tend to ask for ICT marketing tools like AdWords,
search engine optimization or social marketing; and some employers equate social
marketing with the aimless use of Facebook. Interns may not be deployed to the
benefit of their employer.
 Gazan entry level salaries are low, and employers hesitate to invest in professional
development.
28

29
of the employed respondents to Mercy Corps’ online graduate survey, or 16 respondents,
described themselves as freelancers. Gazan graduates report that freelancing helps them acquire
skills and earn income while they search for reliable employment.
Freelancers interact directly with the market. This means that their learning is self-driven, and
their needs are broad. Each freelancer is a micro-company requiring a full suite of skills. The
pressure leads to some less-focused research responses, as freelancers feel a genuine need to
learn everything (every business skill was rated important or very important to them), while they
also emphasize the need to specialize. Business skills seemed to take precedence over technical
skills in research responses; when asked an open question about the skill most important to their
success, not one interviewee listed a single technical skill, programming language, or the notion
of technical excellence.
Most of the respondents’ work was in web development, gaming and mobile applications,
although these are not the fields demanded by prospective employers. Furthermore, it is globally
recognized that the field of app development and gaming is speculative and often unreliable as a
source of income.14
The 16 freelancers who respond to Mercy Corps’ online graduate survey reported a neutral-to-
dissatisfied view of their education. These responses are also notable for the lack of strongly
critical views expressed by unemployed graduates, who were 68% of the respondents.
Table 21 – Views of Education by Graduates
Is there is a connection
between your Field of Study
and your current Work?
Overall Employed Unemployed Freelancer Other
Strong Connection 19.2% 44.8% 6.7% 43.8% 14.3%
Good Connection 25.5% 31.0% 19.1% 37.5% 57.1%
Weak Connection 21.3% 10.3% 25.8% 18.8% 14.3%
There is No Connection 34.0% 13.8% 48.3% 0.0% 14.3%
Are you Satisfied with
theoretical Knowledge you
gained from undergraduate
study?
Very Satisfied 8.5% 6.9% 11.2% 0.0% 0.0%
Satisfied 22.7% 31.0% 16.9% 31.3% 42.9%
Neutral 44.0% 41.4% 47.2% 43.8% 14.3%
Unsatisfied 19.2% 20.7% 15.7% 25.0% 42.9%
Very Unsatisfied 5.7% 0.0% 9.0% 0.0% 0.0%
14 David Streitfeld, As Boom Lures App Creators, Tough Part Is Making a Living, New York Times, November 2012.
29

Are you Satisfied with Practical
Skills you gained from
undergraduate study?
Very Satisfied 7.8% 6.9% 10.1% 0.0% 0.0%
Satisfied 14.2% 17.2% 13.5% 6.3% 28.6%
Neutral 31.9% 34.5% 30.3% 31.3% 42.9%
Unsatisfied 30.5% 27.6% 30.3% 43.8% 14.3%
Are you Satisfied with
Business Skills you gained
from undergraduate study?
Very Satisfied 5.0% 0.0% 7.9% 0.0% 0.0%
Satisfied 9.9% 6.9% 9.0% 12.5% 28.6%
Neutral 29.8% 27.6% 28.1% 37.5% 42.9%
Unsatisfied 29.1% 27.6% 31.5% 31.3% 0.0%
Source: Mercy Corps Graduate Survey, 2013
In university, freelancers say that they found themselves bewildered by their choices of career
paths, and they tended to generalize for lack of a clear specialist vision. Seeking work after
graduation, freelancer respondents felt that their lack of specialization made them unable to
compete for work effectively in any single field. They proposed longer internships and revisions
to incubator programs as part of the remedy, although one graduate of three different incubator
programs still felt “unable to compete”. They further found an aspect of the skills gap to be of
employers’ making, by requiring an array of experience and qualifications that no single graduate
could meet. Freelancers (and graduates in general) described an opportunity gap as well
as a skills gap: an insufficient number of jobs for which to compete.
Each young freelancer individually faces the same infrastructure obstacles including poor
electricity and a lack of bank transfer options for payment. They also confront issues in the
business environment, including Gaza’s lack of legal protections for intellectual property. They
face a full set of technical and business demands along with competitive issues that are both local
and global. Locally and globally, they encounter issues of trust, and several report being unable to
obtain payment for some of their work.
The difficulties of freelancing strongly suggest the benefits of providing systematic support to
freelancers as part of a response to Gaza’s skills gap. Infrastructure, business support,
collaboration and experience could all be facilitated through a single integrated platform, which
would also serve to strengthen the professional attributes of future ICT professionals for other
employment. Freelancing is to be encouraged as part of the solution to the skills gap.
The obstacles cited above could be partially remedied by establishing a freelancers’ platform
which provides basic infrastructure and, ideally, access to skills training. This motivated segment
of the graduate community currently has no access to ongoing business skill training or business
development assistance.
30

31
31
Box 22 – Mohammed Saleh Yaghi: Building a Freelance Career
Mohammed Saleh Yaghi, a successful freelancer in Gaza, met with Mercy Corps and shared his story.
I started freelancing while I was at university, helping other students in their programming projects.
After graduation, I started to teach IT students as a private tutor. This gave me a solid theoretical
background in IT but no practical experience. That was my main source of income after graduation.
After two years, a friend approached me and asked me to develop a website for his institution. I told
him that I could not develop a website. I had never done that before. He said, “You should do it. You
need to be a real programmer!” That encouraged me. I worked hard until I developed the website. This
was the first real and complete business product I did as a graduate programmer.
This was a turning point in my professional life, from being a theoretical professional to a practically
oriented professional. It was also my first work with web technologies. That first product created my
reputation, and then individuals and companies started to approach me to do ICT work for them. In
parallel, I started to provide technical and practical-oriented training at private training centers.
Networking with people and through social media platforms helped me a lot in marketing my skills, and
so I had steady work as a freelancer. Most of my work was for local clients. To sustain my work as
freelancer, I had to learn many technologies such as PHP, ASP.NET, Oracle and a host of other
technologies to guarantee a stable flow of work and a stable income. We are living in a small
geographical area and a small market, among many people and companies who do similar work. I also
did some work online. From my personal experience I found a lot of competition from other countries
and [their] prices are lower.
A new change has happened to me recently. Beside my work in private training centers, I started
lecturing at some universities and colleges, thanks to my reputation in the local market. Now I work two
shifts. From 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. I am training and lecturing, maintaining existing software at client sites and
meeting with new clients for new work. The second shift starts at the evening and is mainly dedicated to
programming.
I urge new ICT graduates to try freelancing as it will provide them with experience and income,
particularly at the beginning of their career. They should take advantage of app stores and make sure to
build their profile very early as all clients will ask them for a sample of their work. They also have to
build their soft skills such as communication, self-marketing, creative thinking and problem solving.
It would be great if our local universities and colleges spread this culture among their ICT students.
They should develop a freelancing guide.
At the moment, I notice that demand is increasing. I have recently developed five e-commerce websites
– four of them for external markets and one for a local market – and many archiving systems and
websites. My future plan is to start my own company and recruit an elite team of programmers. This will
significantly expand my business.

The preceding sections have described the gaps of skills and experience among ICT graduates.
The next section turns to the learning sector’s own perspectives on the preparation of graduates
for work, beginning with the acknowledgement that no institution of higher learning is alone in
contributing to the skills gap.
7.5 The Views of the Learning Sector, Higher Education
Institutions
This section reflects the views of eleven interviewees from Gaza’s universities, colleges and
private training centers; and fourteen learning sector participants in focus groups. Their
experience and perceptions of the skills gap are quite different from some of the views above.
The paragraphs below ask who owns the skills gap, and who should be expected to close the gap.
7.5.1 Blending Education, Training and Professional Development
What is the difference, and what are the roles, of education, training, professional development
and ongoing learning? Whose job is it to fill the skills gap? A Sri Lankan study, Building a
Competent ICT Workforce, defines the blend this way:
Training, education and development are competence development activity areas with a separate
focus. Training is learning focused on the present job of the learner; education is learning focused
on a future job for the learner, and development is related purely to the growth of the individual
without reference to the job of the learner.15
This definition highlights the fact that competence is a shared responsibility. ICT professionals,
or aspiring professionals, are responsible for their ongoing individual development. Gaza’s
primary and secondary education system shares responsibility for the learner who arrives at
university to begin a degree program. Universities primarily deliver education, but they confront
the expectation that their graduates will possess skills not found in classrooms, and that their
curricula will anticipate private sector trends. Training centers contribute to the education of job-
seeking graduates and may provide ongoing training to ICT professionals, but they are private
companies that can only offer the trainings that others wish to buy. They sell training in an
environment which has no standards to judge its value.
While there is no crisp division of responsibility for learning, it is clear that increasing
responsibility is held by the graduates themselves in the ICT sector. The relationship between
employer and employee is changing in ways that devolve much more responsibility onto the
individual. Life-long, self-directed learning is essential to any successful ICT professional, and the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) guidelines acknowledge it as a core
curriculum competence. Internationally, ICT professionals are structuring new working patterns
around their self-interest, as explained in the Sri Lankan study:
The career trends of most of the ICT workers are focused on building self profiles rather than
titles… Employment was sought analyzing the ability of the employer to provide exposure and
knowledge… ‘keep learning – keep moving’ … the ICT workforce is more of an industry
resource than an organizational resource.16
15 KPMG Ford, Rhodes, Thornton & Co., Training Needs Analysis for ICT Industry of Sri Lanka, July 2009, page 11.
Subsequently referenced as “Sri Lanka” or “Sri Lanka study”.
16 Sri Lanka, supra, page 12.
32

33
In an industry of this fluid nature, project-based companies minimize training time and often
minimize staff, contracting in the specific skills needed to complete each project. In the training
sub-sector of Gazan ICT, the same habit prevails. Such company structures suggest that the
delivery of skills training needs to be carefully planned around nontraditional business
models, targeting the individuals – the freelancers – who compete for sub-contracts.
In the course of research, graduates repeatedly cited confusion about what to specialize in and
how to structure their study for the market. This is critical: students and graduates must be
empowered with information before they can make good decisions and take responsibility. Once
they graduate, Mercy Corps has also noted that the highly competitive, jostling ICT environment
is quite daunting to its interns, many of whom feel risk-averse and fearful that their ideas will be
stolen or found inadequate. The list of essential business skills might be enhanced by adding a
dimension of confidence- building.
In sum, the contributors, roles and standards of delivery for Gaza’s ICT competence are
fragmented. In particular, the expectation that university courses can produce graduates with a
broad range of practical skills as well as knowledge is simplistic, and a wider sense of
responsibility would be beneficial.
Gaza also lacks standards for ICT training. An ICT policy or curriculum framework would help
young people make good choices, plan their study paths, compete and continue to learn with
confidence. Such information would greatly assist young people to assume the responsibility
which has been devolved onto them by the decentralized ICT sector.
7.5.2 The Learning Sector Perspective
This section summarizes some of the research responses of universities, colleges and training
centers.
7.5.2.1 Trends in University ICT Programs
Notwithstanding its unemployment rate, ICT study is a trend in Gaza. PITA’s recent market gap
analysis counts over 7,000 students enrolled in university or college degree programs in
2010/2011.17
Among the university and college respondents in this research, three report
increasing numbers of graduates in ICT, one is steady and two are decreasing.
Mercy Corps asked each of its university/college focus group participants for the minimum
grade point average (GPA) required to enroll in an ICT program. Their responses show that,
despite chronic unemployment among ICT graduates, entrance standards remain steady in the
vast majority of institutions.
Table 23 – Minimum GPA to Study ICT in Gaza
Higher Education Institution 2010 2011 2012 2013
UCAS (Diploma) 50% 50% 50% 50%
Palestine University 70% 70% 70% 70%
Islamic University (Com. Eng.) 87% 87% 87% 87%
Al-Aqsa University 60% 60% 60% 60%
Gaza University 60% 60% 60% 60%
Al-Azhar University 80% 75% 70% 69%
Al-Quds Open University 70% 70% 70% 70%
Source: Mercy Corps Focus Groups, 2013
17 PITA, Palestinian ICT Labor Market Gap Analysis, PITA Employability Program – Gaza, February 2013.
33

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