On October 12, Lviv Polytechnic hosted a large-scale meeting of representatives of eleven IT companies based in Lviv with the Rector, Vice-Rectors and management of Institutes and Departments of the University working in the IT field. The participants discussed the challenges and opportunities for training IT specialists at Lviv Polytechnic.
Yurii Bobalo, Rector of Polytechnic addressed the audience:
– Every year 1800 students graduate from Lviv Polytechnic. The best of them go to IT firms. And we face the problem that there are almost no people who want to study for a master’s degree, pursue graduate studies, become Candidates of Science and train professionals who will work in your companies. Therefore, we must seek a compromise and answers to the question of how to provide IT companies with specialists and how to leave the most talented young people at the University so that they can train employees for you in the future, – said Yurii Bobalo.
Before the discussion, Oleh Matviikiv, First Vice-Rector, told about the achievements of Lviv Polytechnic, emphasizing its high positions in the most prestigious world rankings, including Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2022 and QS World University Rankings 2022. He also noted that our University has 17 bachelor’s degree programs, 7 of which were created jointly with the IT Cluster, and 41 master’s degree programs.
Oleh Matviikiv also named the main challenges in training IT professionals. These are: staff, structure and content of educational programs, organization of the educational process, and logistics.
– Outflow of research and teaching staff, especially young people, from universities to enterprises with higher wages and abroad, lack of awareness of some teachers who due to the busy schedules and rapid development of technology do not have time to keep up with current trends in the IT industry – this is what we have to constantly struggle with, – said the First Vice-Rector. – The problem is also the inconsistency of the content and structure of educational programs, and the content of academic disciplines to meet the requirements of IT companies. Another major challenge is that, from the second year onwards, many students transfer to study on individual schedules, often skipping classes due to employment in IT firms.
