The Introduction of Soft Skills in the Study of Disciplines of the Second Stage of Higher Education at the Sukhoi State Technical University of Gomel

Abstract

Professional skills, as opposed to interpersonal skills, are types of skills that students learn in university. These skills are easy to quantify. The proficiency in these skills is easy to verify. Soft skills cannot be measured and tested as simply as professional skills. The authors highlight the most indemand soft skills among employers. The article presents the results of several surveys of employers about the important requirements for jobseekers required for employment. Similar surveys were conducted among employers and employees of IT companies in the Republic of Belarus. It is concluded that soft skills are very important both for getting a first job and building a successful career. However, in the universities of the Republic of Belarus, teaching soft skills is poorly represented. The article shows how the process of teaching students of the second stage of higher education was modernized. Only the IT specialties of five Belarusian universities have undergone modernization. This work was carried out with the support of the international project MaCICT. At the same time, the experience of teaching similar disciplines in the universities of the European Union was used. To assess the effectiveness of students’ acquisition of soft skills at the university, a system for assessing the results of the modernization of the learning process was developed. Questionnaires for teachers, students and employees of IT companies have been developed. A survey of all stakeholders in the results of the international project MaCICT was carried out. The paper provides information on the dissemination of the main approaches for organizing the teaching of IT specialties for teachers of another specialties of the Sukhoi State Technical University of Gomel, as well as for teaching IT disciplines of another universities in the Gomel region.