Abstract:

This paper describes the concept of the Erasmus+-project “Modernisation of Master Curriculum in ICT for Enhancing Student Employability in Belarus” (MaCICT) as well as its implementation plan. MaCICT is aimed to enhance the employability of ICT master students, foster entrepreneurship and establishment of SMEs in the ICT sector, and to upscale the position of higher education in the sector on the market. To achieve these goals, we plan to undertake the following activities. First, before the curricula can be modernized, the main weaknesses of ICT employees and ICT university graduates need to be identified. Bearing in mind that:
1) Belarus has a strong tradition of providing competitive education in ICT and
2) the Belarusian ICT industry is export-oriented offering various services for foreign clients, the weaknesses may predominantly be found in missing communicative skills, including foreign language skills and skills of intercultural communication, operative management skills, and in the missing spirit of entrepreneurship.

The motivation to undertake activities related to the project results from the following reasons. The ICT sector is an essential element in Belarus’ economy and the ICT development is defined as a priority task in the National Strategy of Sustainable Economic Development of Belarus up to 2030. Due to its strong ICT education and cost-competitive salaries, the Belarusian ICT industry is export-oriented. During the Soviet time, the ICT industry of USSR was concentrated in Belarus. The ICT tradition from those days has been kept upright - today's ICT industry in Belarus offers various types of ICT services for foreign clients. Although the growth of ICT services has been fast (more sevenfold from 2005 to 2015) and has reached more than 15 % of total export in 2017, the full potential has not been reached yet. To increase the ICT sector’s position as a central soil for the Belarusian economy, factors that hinder further growth, need to be identified and improved. Two of such factors are the inefficient dialogue between the ICT sector and higher education and a rather passive role of universities in framing trends on the market.

The novelty of our study is the new attempt of the MaCICT to respond to these challenges. We will apply the novel didactic method T-CHAT that can help to enhance the mentioned skills and to modernize the existing ICT curriculum needs. We will concentrate on an interdisciplinary study programme at the master level, to equip graduates with competitive skills and competencies requested by the regional, national, and global market to optimize their employability. By doing so, we consider university as an education service provider and an active participant of the market rather than a knowledge-generating authority only. Consequently, the study programmes need to become more labor market and society oriented, practice-based, and student-centered. The market orientation forces universities to combine the traditional professional skills and competencies with soft and transferable skills. Additionally, the universities need to focus more on multidisciplinary studies and internationalization of the study environment.

Keywords:

ICT curricula modernization, ICT market needs, didactic method, teaching soft skills for ICT graduates.