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- Hunger Games: business has taken the training of IT specialists in universities into its own hands
Hunger Games: business has taken the training of IT specialists in universities into its own hands
Overcoming the personnel deficit was discussed at the RUSSOFT IT Forum. Professionals and Personnel" representatives of companies and university community. According to government and business estimates, today the industry lacks from 740 thousand to 1 million employees, and by 2030 it will be necessary to train more than 2 million people. Against this background, there is a fierce competition for specialists. Entrepreneurs see the way out in training new staff in universities, and more and more often they want to train future employees in universities themselves. More details - in the material of "Izvestia".
"To impose what is already being done."
One of the most discussed topics at the forum is the initiative of the Ministry of Digitization, which was announced back in August, but is still being actively discussed: to oblige IT-companies to invest in education 5% of tax deductions.
This idea was met with skepticism in the industry, although they recognized a certain paradox of negative attitude: large IT-companies are already actively working with educational institutions, but they do it not within the framework of regulations, but on their own initiative and - moreover - by necessity.
- I spend dozens of times more than 5% of tax deductions, and I think it's the right thing to do. But if they started forcing me to do it, I would be reluctant to do it," said Yuri Uskov, founder of iSpring (an IT company and a university attached to it in Yoshkar-Ola). According to him, other options for productive interaction can be considered.
Andrei Zarubin, vice president for science and education at InfoWatch Group of Companies, emphasizes that a company must have internal motivation to change something or look for partners among universities, but it "cannot be imposed".
- The regulator is trying to oblige us to do what we are already doing. And so far there are only sketches of some methodology - and it is absolutely unclear what it will turn into," he said. Moreover, the proposed methodology, for some reason, takes into account only universities and does not take into account vocational education and training institutions, which also train personnel for the industry, emphasizes Andrei Zarubin.
Nikolay Komlev, Executive Director of AICIT, noted that although the idea may be a good one, it is important to discuss it with business.
And Leonid Potapov, the head of the program for the development of the ITAT training system at Gazprom Neft, who was much more lenient towards the initiative of the Ministry, considered the initiative as an attempt to help the market and promised to support the ideas of the Ministry. However, Leonid Potapov also noted that many IT companies do much more than the new legislative initiatives suggest.
How many IT specialists does the industry need
The reason why the companies themselves have turned their attention to universities and SPE institutions is very simple: a serious shortage of personnel. According to the estimates of the Ministry of Finance, the deficit is about 740 thousand employees, and according to business - 1 million people.
This has already led to the fiercest competition in the labor market, Natalia Likhodievskaya, HR Director of Softline Solutions, noted during the forum. The company has about 2-2.5 thousand IT-specialists, but about 800 candidates pass through the company per year.
-First of all, this indicates that the labor market is now very dynamically poaching our specialists, " she said.
A fresh research of the IT company Infosystems Jet and the hh.ru platform (available at Izvestia's disposal) shows that IT specialists are trying to keep their jobs with various bonuses in addition to salary: 39% of respondents (about 5 thousand people - IT specialists and IT sector employees - took part in the research) have VHI, 30% are provided with equipment, 25% have opportunities for flexible working hours, etc. And depending on the industry "bonuses" become more: 73% of IT specialists in banks and fintech have VHI, but only 16% in science and education. Only 16% of respondents in IT companies directly have no non-material incentives at all.
At the same time, the respondents themselves highlighted the provision of good equipment (34%) and flexible start of the working day (32%) as the most important bonuses. Also important are VHI (28%), compensation up to 100% of sick leave (27%) and paid days off (22%). Employees value the atmosphere of mutual support in the team (42%), respect for personal time and boundaries (38%), as well as the reliability and stability of the company (35%).
Boris Nuraliev, Director of 1C, Head of the Education Committee of APKIT, noted at the forum that, according to the association's data, about 3% of all employees in Russia are employed in the IT industry. The Ministry of Digitization has different data - 2%. By this indicator Russia is catching up with Romania and Slovenia, but in the countries of Northern Europe three times as many people are employed in the field. And on average in the EU, IT workers account for about 4.6% of the labor market.
According to AICIT, by 2030 Russia will need the number of IT workers in the economy to be at least 4.9%. This means that in 2025-2030 it is necessary to attract 2 million new specialists with higher qualifications and 700 thousand with medium qualifications.
- We have known for a long time that human resources are the main deficit. In 2020 it was only our problem, but now the times have come when it has become a common and big problem," Nuraliev noted. According to him, 1C partners point out that it is the lack of specialists that prevents them from developing.
You can't save money on students
The industry emphasizes that it is necessary to increase not only the quantity, but also the quality of staff training in universities. ITMO Rector Vladimir Vasiliev spoke about this, in particular. According to him, in the forthcoming national project "Data Economy" there is a separate federal project devoted to IT personnel training, and for the first time it talks about the quality of training.
- At the same time, there have recently appeared quite a lot of accelerated training programs: online, offline and hybrid formats. In 3-6 months or a year they teach professional IT skills," he said. - Are universities needed in this situation?
The role of universities, according to Vladimir Vasilyev, remains very important: now in Moscow and St. Petersburg there are 4-5 resumes from juniors for one vacancy. But they lack fundamental education, as well as systemic, critical and creative thinking. That is why it is very important for universities to interact with business, and to form "ecosystems" in which universities, business and the state work together to train personnel.
- I am convinced that universities are necessary, but their role should be rethought," says Vladimir Vasiliev. According to him, universities should be flexible, react quickly to changes in the world of technology and science, but at the same time retain a fundamental approach to education.
Yuri Uskov from iSpring believes that fundamental training in universities "has become quite bad", because universities provide only a stack of technologies, i.e. a certain set of tools. And fundamental education is lacking in those who could eventually play a key role in companies.
At the same time, business also has questions about the quality of juniors that universities produce. Companies believe that teaching hard-skills in universities should be done by practitioners, i.e. their employees. According to the VK Education survey (the results are available to Izvestia), the number of business teachers in Russian universities has increased over the last two years - 71% of university representatives surveyed noticed this. And most often teachers from the real sector work in the IT sphere (70%).
Vladimir Vasiliev said that at ITMO up to 80-85% of disciplines and modules related to hard-skills are provided not by the university's in-house teachers, but by specialists from business.
According to Leonid Potapov, Gazprom Neft's ITAT training system development program is designed so that 70% of IT specialists for the company and its partners are trained in universities by software developers' employees. He stressed that the company invests in universities, even if not all students from there will then go to work in their organizations. This, by the way, is also one of the trends: the situation is such that one has to fight for students. And you cannot save money on them: you need to invest in both training and labor remuneration, said Boris Nuraliev.
- It is important that internships and traineeships for students are paid, this increases interest in working within the company," confirmed Natalia Likhodievskaya from Softline Solutions.
Tatyana Gubina, the head of the direction of work with educational organizations of "Basalt SPO", however, noted that there are very few teachers-practitioners who can competently read courses and convey information on the material to students. And other experts expressed fear that practitioners will simply take the place of full-time teachers, squeezing them out of universities.
Andrei Zarubin emphasizes that it is very important to retain people in universities who can provide fundamental training. Most companies can teach professional skills on their own. However, even the best practitioners do not have such competencies.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
