THE IMPORTANCE OF ICT SECTOR AND ICT UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FOR THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

摘要

ICT (Information and Communication Technology) industry is an important contributor to growth almost every economy. Its contribution to the growth represents 5% of GDP and ICT also drive 20% of overall productivity growth in European Union [1]. In order to hold such portion of ICT sector on total GDP in the future, continuous supply of relevant qualifiedICT professionals into this industry is required. Some development scenarios of requirements for ICT professionals are presented in McCormack [2]. He expects that ICT will generate almost 5.8 million new jobs till year 2015 in EU [2]. These new jobs will have to be saturated by adequately qualified ICT specialists but this is not supported by the number of live births. This paper identified the most important factors that influence economic growth through ICT sectors in EU and especially in the Czech Republic.