The number of budget places in universities for IT specialties in 2015 will increase by 35%

The number of budget places in universities for IT-specialties in 2015 will increase by 35%, said Minister of Communications and Mass Media Nikolai Nikiforov at the second All-Russian children's forum "Future Intellectual Leaders of Russia" . This step will eliminate the shortage of programmers, which was revealed in connection with the government's plans to replace foreign software with domestic counterparts, PRIME reports .

Nikiforov cited statistics that now there are about 25 million specialists in the world who are involved in the development of software products, including about 4 million in the United States, 3 million in India, 2 million in China, and only 350 thousand in Russia.

According to Nikiforov, one of the main reasons for the shortage of programmers is that universities are not able to train the necessary number of personnel. At the same time, according to the minister, Russia has the potential for 1 million specialists. “Today we are betting that there will be companies in Russia that will take a fairly serious position in the world market and we believe that there are prerequisites for this, primarily based on human capital,” said the minister.