Training young NEETs for the most in-demand ICT job profiles
Presented by: Adecco Formazione (Mylia)
Industry: Training and development
Location: Milan, Italy
Size: <250 employees
Challenges:
- High rates of youth unemployment in southern Italy
- Low numbers of ICT specialists
- Need for companies to fill specific ICT professional vacancies
Solution:
The project “Digital Evolution in the South” is a specialised training programme funded by ANPAL under the National Operational Program “Youth Employment Initiative”. It specifically targets young NEETs (Not Engaged in Education, Employment or Training) in southern Italy to skill, upskill, or reskill them into high-demand professional ICT job profiles.
The blended programme is based on a theoretical part (over 6 months) followed by a practice-oriented part (3-month traineeship). It is divided into three tracks — technical specialist, design & development, and development. Each of them targets one or more ICT professional role profiles that have been identified as critical and in high demand by project partner companies.
The technical specialist track relates to professional role profiles such as system architect, digital media specialist, ICT consultant; the design & development track targets web business analyst, technical specialists; the last track on development is channelled on the developer role profile — the most needed professional software roles of all[1]. Given the training focuses on developing advanced skills for the corresponding role profiles, there are some requirements, students must meet to enrol (i.e., basic knowledge of relevant topics).
The partner companies have a leading role in the successful delivery of the project. They take part in the identification of the high demand roles and skills and host the beneficiaries of the programme at their organisations so young people can fulfil the programme’s work-based learning component. This win-win approach allows youngsters to practice and consolidate their new skills and enable companies to attract and recruit new ICT talents.
Results:
The programme aims at delivering 2,320 hours of specialised training by twelve experienced trainers with the objective to train 110 young NEETs and qualify them for high demand ICT specialist role profiles.
Key benefits:
- Teaches the required professional and technical skills to access high demand ICT job roles
- Beneficiaries perform a traineeship within partner organisations that need ICT specialists
- Directly addresses the social and work challenges of southern Italy. This can be replicated in other regions
- The project is part of the National Operational Program — which leverages the opportunity offered to the Member States under the European Social Fund’s “Youth Guarantee Initiative” and is thus highly transferable to other eligible countries
Key resources:
- Coordinators of the project must identify and recruit relevant partner companies at the local level
- Companies need to be committed to sharing insights on the skills and professional roles they need and host trainees for 3 months
- A pool of coordinators (one per track) and specialised trainers is necessary to deliver quality training
- ESSA consortium (2021), Results of “Europe’s Most Needed Software Roles and Skills” needs analysis report https://softwareskills.eu/library/needs-analysis-report-2021/ ↑