Abstract
The Information-oriented industry section of the Council for Industrial Structure analyzed the current state of and the problems concerning the fostering of training manpower for informatization tasks, described the foreseen future situation regarding software engineers, and gave some suggestions for the smooth training of manpower. At present, special education schools are training programmers, and intra-corporation education is being provided to train system engineers. As for ``information literacy'', we are at a lower level than Europe and America, because of the low diffusion of personal computers in schools. There is anxiety about a looming software crisis, due to the supply of software being unable to catch up with the demand as a result of the current shortage of system engineers and programmers. Some suggestions are given on how to deal with such impending crisis: (1) the education of software engineers at universities and special education schools should be improved, (2) the education environment should also be improved (eg. by establishing an organization to promote information-process education), and (3) the government should give incentives for intra-corporation education. In the meantime, the following policies should be implemented immediately: (i) establish an information university, and (ii) improve the examination for information-processing licenses.
