Monday, September 21, 2020

Can MAZ workers become IT specialists?

The IT sphere occupies a modest place in the Belarusian labor market . As the experience of other countries shows, information technology is capable of absorbing much more workforce. But this workforce must be trained.

Today, the state retains surplus personnel in industrial enterprises to avoid a surge in unemployment and social tensions. Unprofitable factories are large employers, so it is dangerous to undertake reforming.

According to the Ministry of Finance, 69 thousand people worked in the ten most unprofitable JSCs of the country in 2015. The Eurasian Development Bank estimates excess employment in Belarus at 20% of the employed population.

Meanwhile, along with “superfluous” workers in the public sector in Belarus, there is a sphere with a reverse bias. The IT industry is in dire need of human resources, and unlike industry, jobs here are highly cost-effective.

Is this area capable of absorbing labor released from inefficient industries? The "Ezhednevnik" talked about this with the head of the coordination and methodological center for the development of IT education of the Association "Infopark" Yevgeny Lastovsky.

The expert noted that in Belarus, about 1.5-2% of the working-age population is employed in the IT sector . At the same time, in countries such as the Czech Republic or Finland, this percentage reaches 10%.

That is, the possibilities of the IT industry in the labor market are far from being exhausted. And here the decisive question becomes whether we will be able to qualitatively retrain the labor force freed from other industries. And also effectively prepare the new generation for work computer engineering vs computer science.

Statistics include the IT sector in a type of activity called "Real estate transactions, rental and provision of services to consumers"

In principle, retraining unprepared adults even in such a complex matter as computer technology is a very real task, Evgeny Lastovsky is sure. You don't have to graduate from university to become a programmer . “The university is needed to broaden the horizons, and express courses of additional education are capable of teaching a profession,” said the representative of Infopark.

Professions in IT involve intellectual ability, but you don't have to be a math genius. “IT is not only programmers, it is analysts, managers and testers. Of course, even with all the variety of specialties, IT is not suitable for everyone. But if a person has the ability and interest in this work, then he can learn at any age, ”the expert believes.

Learning doesn't mean work

The problem is that today the Belarusian IT education system does not fully meet the needs of the market. We are taught mainly theories, and a person who graduated from a university or educational courses is not able to immediately do real work.

“According to our data, about 200 resumes are received for each vacancy of a junior specialist . A person who has received an IT education has to spend 6 to 12 months looking for a first job. "

According to Evgeny Lastovsky, this problem would not exist if educational programs paid more attention to practice. Practice doesn't mean sitting at a computer and learning to write code . Practice is simulating work on a real project.

Career guidance should also play an important role in the educational process . The Center for the Development of IT Education is developing vocational guidance testing, which it proposes to conduct before the start of training.

"Crust" or real skills

As for the IT courses that are now widespread , there are even more problems here. Courses are multiplying against the background of high demand for mastering the profession. According to Infopark, there are about 540 different author's courses in IT specialties in Belarus . However, the quality of training in such courses remains questionable.

“The measure of how effective additional education courses are, is the demand for the graduated specialist in the labor market . And here we get completely different feedback from companies about various educational programs and centers, ”the expert noted.

To put things in order in this area, the Center for the Development of IT Education is working to create a system of voluntary accreditation for courses, which would confirm that the educational process meets certain criteria. Now the center is working on developing criteria - for this it cooperates with leading companies in the educational services market and studies world experience

Now Infopark has launched a competition of educational projects - the participants will train a group of listeners, randomly selected from a pre-selected pool of applicants. Based on the results, the experts will check what they have learned and determine the winners. “It is necessary to select the best teachers and replicate the best experience - as is done in“ big ”education and, for example, in medicine,” noted Yevgeny Lastovsky.

In the future, the Center also plans to introduce into practice voluntary certification for graduates of IT courses, which will determine the level of training received. According to the head of the center, such a system will stimulate educational courses to improve their level and will serve as a guide to the employer in the selection of employees.

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