Olha Dolia, Talent Acceleration Center Manager, explains what dual education is and how to maintain a balance between academia and the practical experience that students can gain in the company.

This article is a part of a series of materials about corporate social responsibility at SoftServe. If you want to know more about our CSR activities, click here.

Why do IT companies need to work with universities?

For SoftServe, education is an important subject that is close to our hearts. For the past 15 years, the company has been running its own training programmes integrated into SoftServe University. However, having gained extensive experience, they realized it was time to take things to a new level.

As a company, we have taken things to a level where we are ready to influence the educational infrastructure in Ukraine and set an example of how to collaborate with universities.

BY OLHA DOLIA | TALENT ACCELERATION CENTER MANAGER

Of course, it might be easier to create your own curriculum from scratch, but SoftServe chose a more difficult path: to start a dialogue with public universities and change their approach to how they train up future IT experts. After all, many young professionals are interested in higher education (and not only in short specialized courses). Not all universities manage to keep up with the rapid changes to the industry, so combining academic and practical environments benefits us all.

"Internationally, companies commonly work closely with universities to train talent. The university's role is not just to provide an education to future workers, but to prepare graduates with practical skills, and we should work on this together," says Olha Dolia.

The company has been cooperating with Ukrainian universities for a long time and works with partners on various educational programmes. Dual education is one format for such cooperation. SoftServe has been working with dual education programmes for about three years.

What is dual education?

"There is no legal definition of dual education at higher education institutions. For us, it's about combining two environments; business and academia. Basically, an ecosystem where students at the university have the opportunity to work. And their work for a company is credited towards their academic results," explains Olha Dolia.

Students can participate in the dual education system starting from the 1st year. This means that they will receive primary education at the university in the 1st and 2nd year, and only then will they work in the company. Curricula are designed to maintain a balance between work projects and academic workloads.

According to the project manager, one reason why the company began to develop this new approach to education is that, with every year that passes, students are starting work earlier.

"When we came to the university four years ago, we faced resistance: you, they said, are taking away our students." But we were not taking them away; they were choosing us themselves. And with online education, they now start even earlier. Before, you had to attend offline lectures, but now everything is available online. We come to meet the second-year students, and already a third of them are working," says Olha Dolia.

To ensure that students do not neglect their education, universities and companies must work together to provide training. After all, basic education is vital for students to be able to grow in their future careers and accomplish more complex tasks.

There are three aspects to dual education: company representatives, university educators, and administrators and students. In this ecosystem, students are not just consumers of knowledge but active co-creators of this environment.

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Dual education programmes are currently available at Lviv Polytechnic National University (Artificial Intelligence and Applied Mathematics faculties) and Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (Electronics, Applied Mathematics and Informatics faculties). Up to 1,000 students study in these programmes in Lviv. Negotiations are underway in Kharkiv, Dnipro and Kyiv to scale this model to other cities.

How do students feel about the new educational approach?

According to Olha Dolia, Ukrainian students are now very motivated and result-oriented, and their desire to get a job as soon as possible is one of the reasons why they are responding so well to such initiatives. The company does not insist that they continue working at SoftServe after completing their training.

Our objective is for them to want to stay. That's why we organize various activities and meetings over a period of time to show us from different angles so that the students learn what SoftServe is all about from the people who work here," she says.

One way to do this is through teamwork. A team of 5-6 people is assigned a mentor and they learn to work together and develop software. The company's mentors help students build processes the way they are built at SoftServe. This gives young people the necessary professional experience and personal contacts within the company.

For employees who apply to become mentors and speakers, this is also a valuable professional challenge. For example, if you want to gain leadership experience, you can head a team of students.

Why is education so important for SoftServe?

The Board of Directors and founders of SoftServe believe that the development of Ukrainian IT education is strategically important for the company.

"The company is Ukrainian and our founders are graduates of Ukrainian universities. Universities often ask for help. And we do help, we want to build this environment. Eventually, these university graduates become our employees," says Olha Dolia.

By working with higher education institutions, the company is helping them change their relationships with students. After all, the students are now becoming customers who buy their services. This means that training programmes should be interesting and competitive. Mutual support between IT businesses and academia also strengthens them.

Companies see how students perform at work and provide feedback to the university that is used to enhance academic education.

"Our job is to build a bridge between professional and educational standards, they complement each other," says Olha Dolia.