The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and IT training provider AS BCS Koolitus have signed an agreement to carry out a pilot project during which 500 people with no prior experience in IT will be trained to become junior software developers over the next four years, ERR News writes.
“There’s a serious shortage of workers in the Estonian information and communications technology sector. To ease that, increasing the number of student places or bringing in labor from abroad is not enough, we also need a broader selection of opportunities for training and retraining. In collaboration with businesses, the new pilot project will train people from other spheres in the field of ICT and software development in 14 weeks,” Minister of Economic Affairs and Infrastructure Kristen Michal (Reform) said.
“Phase one is an opportunity for 500 people, and if businesses and employers are satisfied with a training model like this, it can be continued,” Michal added.
The training program will be carried out using a specially tailored approach based on the principle of agile software development, developed together with IT companies. The subjects dealt with will provide an overview of the basic concepts as well as the process and life cycle of software development.
The aim is to provide the trainees with the skills, experience, and capabilities of a software developer as IT businesses need them. The graduates of the program, which consists of classroom training as well as practical work at an IT development company, will have the necessary skills to take up a job as junior software developer.
The target group of the program includes people with higher education in a non-IT related profession, are interested and motivated to work in the field of IT, and are ready to participate over a 14-week intensive study period, Merilen Sõrmus, project manager at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, said.
According to the contract, AS BCS Koolitus and IT Koolituskeskus OÜ, which will run the training together, will start developing the program in autumn 2016. Communication and information events and registration will start at the end of 2016, training will begin in the first quarter of 2017.
The project, which will cost €1.4m, will be financed with the help of the digital literacy project of the European Social Fund.
