Bringing knowledge of market players into education

Presented by: ICT Association of Hungary

Industry: Information Communication & Technology

Location: Budapest, Hungary

Size: <50 employees

Challenges:

• Graduates lack practical technological and business-related knowledge and competencies
• Shortages of university lecturers and/or appropriate institutional knowledge on recent technologies

Solution:

Hungary’s “Code your future!” project (GINOP-3.1.1-VEKOP-15-2016-00001) is a large-scale initiative, supported by the European Social Funds, that tackles the shortages of ICT specialists. The project is about significantly growing the number of ICT career-ready graduates and bringing knowledge from market players into education.

Partner of the national project, the ICT Association of Hungary was tasked to develop and manage the concept and service of a “trainers’ pool” that extends or establishes cooperation between academic partners and ICT companies and most importantly, involves market professionals in practical training activities at the participating universities. For operations, an intermediary company takes charge of the implementation of the “trainers’ pool” and service provision via public procurement.

The “trainers’ pool” is a virtual database of market professionals who previously collaborated with participating universities of this initiative. The matchmaking between universities and trainers also happens via the intermediary company which coordinates with both parties and ensures service provision.

In practice, this means universities define their semestrial plan, needs, and include their wishes for specific trainers. They submit them to the intermediary company, tasked to hire the trainers identified by the university or by the intermediary company in the “trainers’ pool” or in its own network.

To be eligible, universities must send their plans before the start of the semester, allowing enough time to find, negotiate, and plan the course with the trainer. Based on the universities’ requests, trainers define an outline of the lecture. The latter is evaluated by a board of two IT specialists and one market expert responsible for quality assurance, notably ensuring the relevance of lectures to the labour market expectations.

Upon acceptance and after the delivery of the training, the intermediary company remunerates trainers.

Results:

Over four years of the project, 2906 guest lectures were given and 101 courses delivered by market professionals.

Each year, there are about 50 market professionals involved in the lecturing activities.

Key benefits:

• Strong relationship between academic and company partners
• Future-ready workforce, with the IT competences sought after by companies
• Replicable and adaptable to different Member States, using the European Social Funds

Key resources:

• Experts and IT specialists to conduct the quality assurance
• Coordinating organisation (intermediary company) and administrative support to ensure seamless matchmaking
• Competitive financial compensation for company partners/trainers
• Availability of funding