The information technology era has created huge demand for computer science specialists worldwide – from programmers and hardware engineers to testers and software architects. Ukraine is no exception, and responding to this demand, dozens of private schools have been set up around the country to train workers for the hi-tech industry.Lviv IT School, or LITS, is one of them.
LITS teaches more than 1,000 students per year via its educational centers in five Ukrainian cities. But that’s just offline. Now, through its online educational platform, Prometheus, the school reaches hundreds of thousands of people.
Lviv IT Cluster CEO Stepan Veselovskyi told the Kyiv Post that LITS’ free internet courses are the feature that distinguishes this school from others. Two published courses by LITS, Web UI Basics and Testing Basics, have attracted about 60,000 online students, and 6,000 of them have already completed their studies and earned certificates.
Prometheus CEO Ivan Prymachenko says the launching of online courses by a school or university is a sign that the institution is positive about the quality of the courses it offers. “Before buying something, people (often) want to see a trial version,” Prymachenko told the Kyiv Post. “So if an IT (school) creates a free online course, it means they’re sure about its quality.”
Conversely, if a company or university does not go online, that indicates that it’s either in the dark about innovations in online teaching, or that it knows its content is low-quality, and its teaching is poor, Prymachenko said.
According to a survey by online tech journal DOU, private schools now educate one-fourth of the total number of tech students in Ukraine – about 25,000 people graduate from private educational institutions every year. The number was many times lower when LITS was founded in 2012.
And in contrast to the many private schools that opened after it, LITS was not primarily intended to be a high-profit educational company. Rather, the school was set up by specialists who were looking for ways to improve their own skills through exchanging experience.
The school’s founder, Dmitry Kosarev, told the Kyiv Post that the starting goal was simply to provide Lviv’s IT industry with more testers: There weren’t enough program testers in Lviv, so the community decided to train some. The idea was to train up people and help them enter the IT industry as quickly as possible, with the focus being only on practical skills.
And the idea worked for LITS.
“Within a year-and-a-half of LITS operating, we oversaturated the market with testers,” he said. “After that, we decided to move forward to other areas.”
To retain teachers for longer, LITS started charging for its courses.
“At first, people (teach others) purely out of enthusiasm, but it’s an exhausting activity.” Kosarev said. “That’s why we created a model that helps people to work comfortably.”
All of the people that now teach at LITS are from the tech sphere, and the school now employs about 150 of them. All are part-time teachers, combining their regular full-time job with teaching two or three evening classes at LITS.
“Those who have achieved something in the IT industry want to share their knowledge,” Kosarev said. “And that’s good, because knowledge devalues very quickly in the fast-moving IT industry. It’s impossible to just employ classical theoreticians, because they will become isolated from the real profession.”
According to the company’s CEO, Anna Kosareva, most students do not drop out, because the competition to gain a place on a course is tough: potential students have to undergo an interview, and their selection is based on two main criteria – their motivation and their English skills. Course teachers also decide whether they will employ this person in their own company afterward.
LITS is now generating enough money not just to break even, but to invest in expansion. Kosareva thinks the company may even transform into a college in the future.
“That’s a distant dream. But our teachers’ programs are already used in various universities.”
A course in LITS lasts from two to three months and costs from Hr 9,000 to Hr 10,500 ($360 to $420). Due to the strict selection process, most students finish their courses.
Ukraine’s private educational centers are also opening up opportunities for young students of IT. According to DOU, Ukraine’s biggest schools, such as Step IT Academy, the IT Education Academy, and CyberBionic Systematics train up to 10,000 people every year, and almost all of them have special courses for children.
But despite being so popular with Ukrainians, its doubtful online courses will become a realistic alternative to a university education, experts say.
“A fully fledged alternative would have to cover 40-50 percent of Ukraine’s students – some 600,000-700,000 students,” said Yegor Stadny, the executive director of CEDOS, a think tank on educational issues.
“Private courses accept second or third-years students, who already know math fundamentals. If they are accepted without these basics, when they graduate they will have been shaped for specific technical positions and will not be able to change profession afterwards. And (being able to change profession) is an essential competency in modern life.”
The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by Beetroot, Ciklum and SoftServe. The content is independent of the donors.
