Where digital engineers will come from

A source

"The talent itself is colorless and acquires coloring only when applied."
M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin

Frames really decide everything. And in the conditions of development of the digital economy, personnel are needed special. And for the cultivation of such personnel it is necessary to create appropriate conditions.

Despite all the problems, the IT industry remains one of the most effective in the Russian economy. According to the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, one employee in this field creates products and services for an average of more than 2 million rubles a year. But only 15-20% of graduates are ready for immediate employment and effective work in the IT field, according to experts from the Internet Development Institute (IRI), "Interaction between IT business and universities." What went wrong in high school education?

What you need and what to eat

Meanwhile, life actualizes the need for the formation of interdisciplinary educational programs related

• with end-to-end integration of processes and information systems in digital enterprises and appropriate business reengineering,
• with the creation of "digital twins" of enterprises and their products,
• with robot communications,
• with the interaction of the human mind with the “intelligence” of the robot,
• with the development of artificial intelligence,
• with working with virtual reality,
• with such social and humanitarian areas as, for example, “a lawyer for the resolution of disputes related to the activities of robots”, etc.

It is hard to be mistaken if we say that the importance of “digital education” is today underestimated, and this importance is constantly increasing. And in all areas and sectors of the economy.

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How to help the applicant and the student decide

Today's applicants, as a rule, choose both a specialty and a specialization immediately after school, not really understanding what they really get in the end, what they can do themselves and what they can do. Frequently, the digital entertainment available to them is more likely to affect the career guidance of applicants than future engineering work.

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In turn, universities, accepting applicants, can focus only on the results of the Unified State Exam, which are absolutely not tied to a specific future specialty and specialization of future now universally digital engineers. According to IRI experts, the modern conservative university system for training IT professionals does not fully respond to the personnel demand of the modern economy, not keeping up with the speed of changes in the labor market and in the IT industry itself. There is still a huge gap between academic education in the field of IT and the realities of work, according to 86% of experts polled by Iran.

In order to bridge this gap, universities will strengthen interaction with representatives of the IT industry - key IT companies that open their departments, laboratories or develop joint educational programs at educational institutions. Perhaps, it is necessary to increase the interest of market participants in such activities by the state, thinking about possible preferences and motivation? Of course, specific enterprises do not need thousands or even hundreds of young digital engineers at once, but they are needed by a country that could encourage such charity.

Today, the first 2-3 courses at a technical college are usually entirely devoted to general education subjects, but this is clearly not enough. Applied directly to universities, it is obviously advisable to provide an advanced course in the future profession with such aspects of specialization as system analysis, maintenance of various systems, system design, and technical solutions development as part of a bachelor degree in the second year (3 and 4 semesters).

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It would be nice to conduct at least some research, including in the framework of the course project (4 semester) on the specialization of the student's choice and the recommendation of the teacher. Protection of the specified course project should be made by the commission, which includes the presence of specialists in various specializations and psychologists. By decision of this commission, not only the further specialization of the student is determined, but also the expediency and prospects of his subsequent training in the magistracy and further in graduate school.

Probably, it would also be interesting for the university to differentiate students by the possibility of using them in the digital economy early, for which it would be possible to “press” a few general subjects. However, there will be no real reduction in the volume of general education subjects - let's assume that today they will simply (should) be slightly different and business oriented.

Who needs a bachelor, cheap?

As for the institute itself, then, according to the general opinion of our specialists (far from the latest in engineering) of the country, a bachelor is an incompletely trained specialist, who is about a little above the level of a vocational school graduate (VET), many 90s. closed or renamed the "Academy". By the way, in the western education system there are no vocational schools that train specialists of average qualification. We, blindly adopting this Western model, began to duplicate vocational school graduates in universities.

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Among other things, the inconvenience is that, if earlier the applicant passed the entrance exam once, studied and became a specialist, now, after four years of study, you have to pass the second entrance exam for the magistracy. Experience shows that after completing a bachelor’s degree, only a third of students continue their studies at the master’s level in order to become qualified digital engineers. The rest prefer to quickly get some work (and not necessarily a specialty), just to make money. Thus, in general, the Bologna system leads to a decrease in the number of people with higher education. Tell me, do we need this? We are preparing specialists for whom?

A teacher, a scientist and a bureaucrat - not much for one?

In addition, due to the transition to the Bologna system, it was necessary to perform a great amount of paper work on reworking curricula and educational standards. Ask what university professors are doing today, and you will almost certainly hear about the continuous filling in of various forms and reports, and not about the constant increase of competences in the rapidly changing world of technology.

And, perhaps, we should start with the “conservatory” and, first of all, make our institutions of higher education digital by digitizing business processes and fundamental reengineering? Probably, our scientists and university professors (very often they are the same people) should, at a minimum, be relieved of the continuous, sorry, “writings” of plans, applications and progress reports. The mere fact that instead of research they are mainly engaged in non-core activities, suggests that the current formulation of research and teaching work does not meet the requirements of the digital economy. Nothing but lagging behind other countries, it will not bring.

It comes to the fact that our even completely patriotic scientists, who are seriously engaged in science, leave for foreign research centers simply because there everything they need for research can be obtained almost the next day, and here - sometimes in a year (and if they prove that they really need it for some reason, and last year there was a corresponding application).

There is a loss of controllability of the scientific search, which still have to be managed by professionals who understand what, why and why. That is, besides the salary, you need a certain confidence in the scientific staff and the corresponding responsibility of the latter for the results of their work. A negative result of a scientific search, we add, is also a result. But to understand where the money went, can only be a specialist, and not just a "chain of controllers." Unfortunately, thoughts in the digital economy have a completely material (digital) basis and have no boundaries. And they will not go anywhere, if they quickly find a use here.

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Digital Transformation of Universities

As for universities, obviously, there will be little implementation of any electronic document management system, and personal interfaces will be needed for each student, the ability to work remotely with digital models and much more so that the knowledge gained in the university can be qualitatively different. from those that can be obtained, for example, on the Internet. And this means the need for the university to work together with a specific digital production.

In the process of this digital transformation, universities themselves should turn into digital enterprises with their own digital ecosystems, which along with end-to-end learning processes in any form should include all participants in knowledge transfer chains and value chains (both training and digital engineers themselves). Finally, it is necessary to understand that the formation of the much-needed army of digital engineers is not a service, as people from rapidly becoming outdated and threatening to be completely degraded are trying to imagine. This is the creation of a new unique product of its kind, integrating, sorry for the expression, young citizens of the Russian Federation with advanced competencies and knowledge. And all this to transcend, not to repeat what is already in the world.

Anyone have any objections?

Authors publication:
Golyshko A.V. - Systems Analyst of Technoserv Group of Companies, Candidate of Technical Sciences, member of the Russian Union of Journalists;
Likhachev N.I. - Ph.D., associate professor

Literature:

1. Rudykh E. “Personnel to a Digital Economy: Problems and Prospects”, report of the Iranian Islamic Republic on the Forum Svyaz'2017 “The Foundation of Digital Transformation”
2. Shmelkova L.V. Personnel for the digital economy: a look into the future - Additional professional education in the country and the world - 2016. - № 8 (30)