ForHacSec

As with all sectors and industries, education sector employees are not immune to cost cutting and the threat of redundancy. We’re not talking about the nurseries or even GCSE level educators, but the higher education and university sector.

The university and higher education fee charging sector is the sector which you would expect to be the most shielded given the vast amount of fees they charge and the profit education providers make.

However more and more higher education providers are announcing pay cuts and redundancies to staff. The same staff which are responsible for educating the industry professionals of both today and tomorrow.

This threat of job cuts within the higher education sector is even more prevalent in the IT Security sectors. Yet at the same time the amount of exploits and vulnerabilities being discovered and used is constantly increasing along with the need to have more high quality, well trained professionals to enter the IT Security industries in order to defend both private and public sector organisations against these threats from both home and abroad.

These are the same higher education establishments which charge a fee for the many thousands of students which attend each year, those which have announced education tuition increases which make the overall fee anything up to £9,000 per academic year, yet they still find the urge to protect their profit margins as appose to their staff and their customers, their students futures.

By higher education establishments making such cuts and putting their employees and their families incomes at risk, these institutions are risking loosing a lot of highly skilled and talented individuals who not only know the text book theory but also how to apply that in the field in a practical environment within industry. These are the people who are teaching those who are working in the industry.

Do the higher education establishments not realise that it is these individuals who they need to keep and stay committed to their organisations otherwise without support and a secure future the higher education organisations are loosing something more valuable than their profit margins in the long term. They are loosing the skills, the talent and the passion as well as the organisations reputation which the employees enrich.

These individuals have chosen to not only study a subject which they are interested in, but have chosen to take that extra step and go on to teach that subject which they are so knowledgeable and passionate about to others, by putting in the extra hours both in and away from work to develop their students abilities as well as the education providers reputation for providing such a high level of teaching and resources.

Although these tough times are hard on everyone and at first may feel hard on individuals who’s posts are at risk in the higher education sector, it could be that this proves beneficial long term to the industries themselves when lecturers and tutors alike are forced to take up employment within the industry outside of teaching and bring that knowledge, skill and passion with them. To which we are sure they will be welcomed.

The stereotype of ‘Those who can’t do, teach’ is certainly not present in the higher education sector.

Published & Editied by ARobson and DMoulden (Site team)