IT education in St. Petersburg State University

Abstract

For many years, the world IT industry seems to have insatiable needs for qualified IT specialists. Russian higher education produces a large number of IT graduates each year, and the global market values them highly, recruiting both remotely and onsite. In this article we explore three success factors of the Russian IT education: thorough grounding in fundamental mathematics, adherence to international educational standards and close connections with IT industry. Since the early 1990s, Saint Petersburg State University (SPbU) accumulated an immense experience in collaboration with IT companies on education. Moreover, SPbU has developed a set of tools for IT education purposes, providing significantly better control of student user errors, both static and dynamic. This helps controlling the quality and progress of students in the real-life tasks of IT, alongside with their academic progress. In this article we compare the efficiency of preparing new IT specialists via joint educational programs of universities with IT companies, with the alternative of the traditional recruitment followed by additional training in the workplace.