Programmer of the moment

The surge in popularity of specialties related to information technology, noted this year during entrance exams to higher educational institutions, is most likely associated with the emergence of the federal target program “Electronic Russia”. To implement this program, which provides for “widespread computerization of the entire country” by 2010, specialists will be needed - those who will sit down to work on computers. And the government, having recently approved this document, admitted that it would pay for their preparation. The “educational” part of the “Electronic Russia” program is estimated at 76 billion rubles - and universities will have to fight for it.

Industry-specific educational institutions of communications, whose very names contain the word “computer science,” are recognized as responsible for training technical specialists for the “Electronic Russia” program. And it was they who felt increased interest in IT specialties this year. As Valentina Belova, head of the personnel and educational institutions department of the Ministry of Communications of the Russian Federation, told a correspondent of the newspaper Vremya Novostey, this year the competition for industry universities reached 20 people per place. In particular, this is exactly the number of applicants for one place in the specialty “computers, complexes, systems and networks” at the Siberian State University of Telecommunications and Informatics (Novosibirsk).

“The interest in IT is explained primarily by market requirements and the “explanatory work” of the media,” says Ms. Belova. - Applicants want to study those professions that are now most in demand, and we must quickly respond to this. The ministry even has a special industry education program. We take part in approving programs and curricula, determining specialties and directions.”

Moreover, university rectors today agree with the “leading role” of the ministry. For example, the rector of the St. Petersburg University of Telecommunications and Communications. Bonch-Bruevich Alexander Gogol believes that the decision to leave universities as sectoral ones was correct, although several years ago this was called into question. According to him, thanks to the coordination work of the Ministry of Communications, universities manage to comply with the current state of industry and technology, and graduates do not have to worry about finding employment.

At the University. Bonch-Bruevich now out of 16 specialties, 4 are focused directly on new technologies. In general, according to Valentina Belova, in the last 2-3 years, new specialties have appeared in almost all universities of communications, which reflect the penetration of information technology. And new specialties appear very quickly - as was the case, for example, with “mobile communications”. And soon, some universities should begin training personnel for e-commerce.

Moreover, in technical universities the process of “winding down” non-core specialties that were opened earlier for opportunistic reasons has already begun. Thus, the rector of the Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics Vahan Shakhgildyan told a correspondent of the Vremya Novostey newspaper: “Without reducing the admission plan, we are redistributing specialties in favor of the most scarce and in demand.” For example, the number of places for future accountants has been reduced to a minimum. According to Mr. Shakhgildyan, MTUCI claims to be the leading “HR forge” for “Electronic Russia” - after all, last year the university had the highest competition among technical universities in Moscow, and this year the record may be repeated. The rector explains the popularity of MTUCI by the fact that now graduates have the opportunity to find a job and receive a high salary immediately after defending their diploma. Moreover, enterprises enter into contracts with many students in their second or third year, and then training continues according to an “individual plan.” By the way, in recent years, almost 100% of MTUCI graduates prefer to work in their specialty rather than go into other areas of business.

Irina BELASHEVA