IT education reform: main priorities and directions
- There is a great demand from the industry for cooperation with educational institutions, especially with universities. Universities also show openness to IT business. There are many joint training initiatives in Ukraine, while the number of IT vacancies is breaking records;
- The IT industry has much greater growth potential than we see today. It depends on human capital and can reach 1 million IT professionals. We are talking not only about engineers, but also marketers, sales professionals, business analysts, product managers, recruiters, communicators and more. All people who will hold these positions must have a quality education;
- In Ukraine, the roadmap for IT education reform with the participation of business, educational institutions and the state continues to be formed. On July 9, 2021, the first intermediate result of the study — a rapid audit of the current state of IT education in Ukraine — was released;
- At each stage of education reform, it is necessary to understand who the provider is and to work with this party. It is also crucial to work with teaching methods and content;
- Today, out of 270+ universities, only about ten teach such popular disciplines as Big Data and IoT. University programs must meet the needs of industry and be relevant;
- Children do not want to go to college, although these schools could be a good start for juniors in IT. Niche potential is underestimated and untapped.
Universities and corporate education: fundamental knowledge or a focus on technology?
- There is a need to liberalize collaborations between universities and IT companies. This means that teachers must be able to work transparently and legally in an IT company in parallel with their work at the university;
- IT education means not only higher education. It all starts with general secondary education, with the ability to think logically, critically, systematically, the ability to cooperate;
- It is worth paying attention to the development of endowment funds that will be created for the needs of Ukrainian universities;
- Already today, there are universities whose ratings have risen significantly after they became more open to the development of dual education. Such an example is Sumy State University;
- It is important to introduce the educational model 10\20\70, where 10 % is theory, 20 % is feedback from students, and 70 % is practice. This model is widely used abroad, and in our country so far, mostly in small private IT schools;
- Corporate universities have two main areas: training for future staff, and training for existing employees of the company. As of now, these two areas are equally active, but there is a request from IT companies to close the first area. After all, one wants to get enough educated graduates who do not need to be trained. At the same time, IT companies are ready to continue to provide material and technical base for students.
We are grateful to the following speakers and moderators of the event for participating:
- Kostiantyn Vasiuk, Executive Director of IT Ukraine Association;
- Maksym Pochebut, Vice President for Educational Affairs of IT Ukraine;
- Oleksandr Bornyakov, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation for IT Development;
- Oleh Sharov, Director General of the Professional Higher Education and Adult Education Directorate, MES;
- Yehor Stadnyi, Vice President for Bachelor Programs at the Kyiv School of Economics;
- Valery Krasovsky, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Sigma Software;
- Kyrylo Kryvolap, Executive Director of the Center for Economic Recovery, Adviser to the Prime Minister of Ukraine;
- Anton Chornyi, CEO, GOIT;
- Oleksandr Aziukovskyi, Rector of NTU Dnieper Polytechnic, candidate of technological sciences, Professor
- Halyna Datsiv, Ph.D., AVP Learning & Development, SoftServe;
- Ievhen Sakalo, GlobalLogic University Program Coordinator in Ukraine, candidate of technological sciences, Associate Professor;
- Denys Hrynov, Head of EPAM University Program in Ukraine, candidate of technological sciences, Associate Professor;
- Iryna Zolotarova, Member of the National Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, Professor of the Department of Information Systems of KhNEU.
It is necessary to remind that the first IT Ukraine Education Summit was held in 2020 and brought together 15 speakers from EPAM, SoftServe, GlobalLogic and 5 educational institutions in Ukraine. One can learn more about the Association’s educational projects following the
link.
