Penza, 1 June 2016. PenzaNews. The candidates for the office of a university president must be selected together with the business community, suggested Maxim Semenkin chairman of Secon software developers association, head of CodeInside, during the regional APF roundtable discussion “Issues and Potential for Electronic Services in Modern Times” on Wednesday, June 1.

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According to him, the lack of qualified professionals is one of the main issues in the IT field.

“We revealed many reasons behind that, including professional migration to the capital cities. However, it was also clear for us that the universities are falling behind the real life in the education they provide. The field is developing very quickly – very fast, while the university education remains largely the same,” he said.

As Maxim Semenkin stated, his association has been attempting to establish good cooperation with universities since 2013 to affect the education program, but so far their efforts have been practically in vain.

Yet at the same time, he announced that he held a meeting on June 1 with Alexei Kostin, Assistant Minister of Industry in the Penza region, head of Business Development Department; and Alexander Voronkov, regional Minister of Education, to discuss introducing changes to education programs.

“That concerns the college education. Based on the results of our meeting today, I can say that we have at least the foundation for mutual understanding,” said the president of Second software developers association.

As Maxim Semenkin stressed, IT companies practically act as clients for universities that provide education services, and therefore have the right to affect the education process and the choice of staffing to a certain degree.

“We would like to participate in choosing the candidates for authorities of universities: the university heads would get feedback from the industry. We would like them to be interested in our opinion,” he explained his position.