Schools must be clear on computer courses

Letters

THERE are many institutions, private and government, offering courses in Internet Technology (IT) and Computer Science (CS).
Some might offer IT courses and term it as CS or vice versa.
I think it is important for the ordinary students and future ones to be clear on these before they chose a career path. A brief is given below for our information.
IT courses are mainly geared at equipping students with knowledge and skills to; install, organise and maintain computer systems as well as designing and operating networks and databases. IT specialists work in business environments while a computer science graduate work in a wider area covering businesses to universities to video game designers. Computer science focuses on programming using mathematical algorithms.
A computer scientist is a software developer while an IT specialist is a user. A computer scientist should be well vested with the programming languages such as Java, C++ etc.
While IT and CS graduates can get similar jobs, there is a distinct difference.
An IT professional should enjoy installing computer systems using software and maintaining networks and databases, while a computer scientist should enjoy mathematics and software engineering (design).
In general, IT professionals need to stay abreast of new technology, and they must be very familiar with how to use operating systems and server software, including Linux, Apache, OpenSSL, Windows Server, Oracle, MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server. The computer scientists are behind these languages.
The relationship between these two is very close and interdependent. Schools, colleges and universities should use the correct name that reflects the courses on offer. What most are doing in PNG is offering IT courses with a little bit of CS.

Y2K Bug
June Valley, NCD