Poland aims to foster IT whizz kids
PR dla Zagranicy
Alicja Baczyńska
27.02.2018 08:30
A new programme which aims to find and foster young IT talent was jointly launched in Warsaw on Monday by the digitisation, education and development ministries.
Photo: StartupStockPhotos/pixabay.com/CC0 Creative Commons
The programme, called the IT Mastery Centre, will run for five years and is to take up PLN 50 million (EUR 12 mln, USD 14.79 mln).
The key goal of the programme is to create a network of schools specialising in IT, which will collaborate with IT universities in Poland. The centre is to monitor the progress of students and prepare them for international competitions and future enterprises that require programming skills.
The programme is dedicated to all types of primary and secondary schools.
Deputy Development Minister Paweł Chorąży said at a conference on Monday that the ongoing workforce shortage in the IT sector means that “there is no better investment than that in people who may become a driving force in [Poland's] economy in the future.”
Despite Polish programmers' success at prestigious international competitions and Polish universities' acclaimed IT departments, a shortage of IT specialists continues in Poland, the Puls Biznesu daily reported on Monday.
Substandard digital skills among young Poles caused by poor IT education in Polish primary schools is one of the reasons behind the shortage, an expert quoted by the daily said.
The paper said that, due to the shortage, Polish companies are already hiring IT experts from countries like Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, but in recent years there have been more and more programmers coming to work in Poland from Spain, and even Mexico and Brazil. (aba/vb)
Source: PAP, IAR