A school with a focus on IT will be built in the north of St. Petersburg

A school with a focus on IT will be built in the north of St. Petersburg

The first IT school for a thousand students, with two swimming pools and equipment, will be built in St. Petersburg. ITMO will train teachers for it.

The Arsenal group of companies will build between its two residential complexes – Ariosto and Modum – a secondary school with an emphasis on studying IT for 1.1 thousand places. The school will be equipped with two swimming pools, an assembly hall and a gym, and a sports block. It will also have everything you need to study technology: 3D printers, scanners, cameras, robots.

The school will be public and free; ITMO will train personnel for it. The courses will be three-track programs for teachers who have already received basic pedagogical education. The first track is advanced training courses for subject teachers. This, for example, will include training in teaching computer modeling and the use of AI tools in physics lessons, and the use of virtual reality mechanisms in natural science lessons. On the Soft Skills track, teachers will be taught the art of communication in negotiations and conflicts, how to recognize manipulation and deal with it, and how to maintain health in the workplace. On the “pedagogical skills” track, teachers will be told about game methods in education and the use of neural networks in teaching.

“The development of the IT industry requires qualified specialists, and such a school can significantly improve the level of training of students in this area. Nowadays, many schoolchildren from primary school are interested in programming. This project can be an excellent opportunity for young people to develop their skills and prepare for a successful career.” , says Napoleon IT development director Sergei Beloklokov.

HRlink partner and development director Dmitry Makhlin agrees that the idea is promising. “Such projects with early career guidance make it possible to identify the most talented children and develop their abilities from an early age. But even for those who do not become professional developers, understanding the basics of programming, technology, and cybersecurity issues is important. The modern world requires everyone to have a minimum level of digital literacy, but the deeper your knowledge, the more skills you have, the better prepared you will be to compete in the future,” he adds.

Modern technologies are developing so quickly that the education system does not have time to adapt, says Olga Zvagolskaya, head of insourcing areas at Itglobal.com Group. “If children are purposefully prepared for a profession, focusing on the right subjects and developing the right skills, this will give an excellent result,” she is convinced.

“At the moment, IT companies themselves are investing effort and money in training specialists: they initiate and support small courses or master classes to popularize professions among future specialists. However, such activities lack the scope and systematic approach. The creation of a specialized school, and it is desirable not alone, will improve the situation on the market, since in 5-7 years we will be able to train good specialists who will at least slightly alleviate the acute shortage of personnel,” predicts the head of the HR department of ALMI Partner Maria Semyonova.