Project: Education

The link between higher education institutions and the labor market in Bosnia and Herzegovina is not at a satisfactory level, in this regard, in 2020, in cooperation with partners from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Austria and Germany, the Erasmus+ project “Strengthening the capacity for the application of dual of education in higher education in BiH DUALSCI”.

 

This project will create and propose legislative and other conditions for the implementation of higher education study programs based on the principle of dual education, which should result in much higher quality education and less drop-out of technical faculty students.

 

The planned time for project implementation is 3 years until the end of 2023.

 

Bit Alliance makes its contribution in proposing a model for the implementation of dual education at faculties in the field of electrical engineering and information technology, which is extremely important for the IT industry in Bosnia and Herzegovina, for which there is great potential for progress.

 

During the month of January 2022, the first Dual Education Forum was held, organized by the Bit Alliance. The forum enabled the exchange of opinions, and it was concluded that only through the synergy of higher education institutions, business and government representatives can we reach appropriate systemic solutions.

 

As part of the project “Strengthening capacity for the implementation of dual education in the higher education sector in BiH”, Bit Alliance is a proud partner together with the University of Zenica, the University of Mostar, the University of Sarajevo, the University of East Sarajevo, the University of Novi Sad, DHBW Heilbronn Germany, FH JOANNEUM Austria, WUS Austria, and IMH Campus from Spain.

 

During the project implementation period, study visits were organized by the Bit Alliance, in which the University of Sarajevo, the University of East Sarajevo, the University of Zenica and the University of Mostar participated. The mentioned study visits were held in Serbia (University of Novi Sad), Germany (DHBW Heilbronn), Austria (FH JOANNEUM and WUS Austria), and Spain (IMH Campus).

 

The goal of the study visits was to see positive examples and practices regarding dual education, as well as its implementation as part of the university’s curriculum. Also, one of the goals was to see potential ways of achieving mutual cooperation between companies and universities.

 

More information about the project can be found on the website of the project itself.

In March of 2020, as part of the “Workforce Development and Greater Access to Markets (WHAM)” project, a grant agreement was signed between Bit Alliance and USAID, with the aim of implementing the “EduBits – IT Courses” project.

 

The implementation of this project during 2020 and 2021 made a significant contribution to the training and employment of the labor force in the labor market of the IT industry, and training in various IT technologies was made possible for over 100 experts.

 

The participants were given the opportunity to develop their IT career and skills, so that in the future they could work on projects in Bit Alliance members and contribute to their further development, and the subject of the courses was selected based on the needs of IT companies in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Mostar and Tuzla. given the lack of professional IT workforce on the labor market. This is another in a series of Bit Alliance projects dedicated to increasing the availability of opportunities to acquire IT knowledge and skills in order to create an in-demand IT workforce.

 

The project “Support to IT educational initiatives” was designed as a measure to support technical training and employment in IT companies, members of the Bit Alliance, given the lack of professional IT workforce on the labor market. Three types of training were implemented within the project:

• IT trainings in companies for the purpose of employment – 62 participants
• up-skill trainings for the existing workforce in IT companies – 21 participants
• courses for the unemployed and the general public – 70 participants

 

In 2020, a total of 153 participants participated in the mentioned trainings, 25 participants were employed after the trainings in IT companies.

 

During 2021, with the aim of providing support and enabling technical training, as well as employment within IT companies, 13 courses were implemented in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Mostar and Tuzla. The courses were successfully completed by 104 participants, 30 participants in Sarajevo, 41 in Banja Luka, 20 in Mostar and13 in Tuzla, of which 20 participants were employed during the duration of the project.

 

The following companies participated in the project: Authority Partners, ECHO Technology Solutions, Klika, LANACO, Ministry of Programming, PlanetSoft and Way7 Technologies.

In order to provide primary and secondary school students, the opportunity for learning programming and other IT skills, Bit Alliance organized free programming schools and CoderDojo IT clubs in cooperation with partners.

 

CoderDojo is a movement established in Ireland that has created a global network of developers based on the volunteer work of mentors and other staff. CoderDojo community believes that understanding of programming languages is becoming increasingly important in the contemporary world, that it is better and easier to learn these skills in early adolescence and that everyone has the opportunity to learn these skills. Over the course of the year, more than 38,000 children have been attending CoderDojo workshops in more than 60 countries around the world. Within the CoderDojo school, attendees can learn to code, create a website, an application or a game, and introduce technology in an informal and creative environment.

 

 
Bit Alliance shares the vision of CoderDojo movement and has organized CoderDojo free programming school at 16 locations in 11 cities of B&H (Sarajevo, Sokolac, Travnik, Banja Luka, Gračanica, Tuzla, Maglaj, Zenica, Mostar, Konjic, Istočno Sarajevo). Up to now, more than 700 elementary and high school students from Bosnia and Herzegovina attended a free coding program. The school is organized in partnership with partner organizations on the basis of voluntary mentoring which enables children and young people to master the programming languages.
 
Our goal is to organize a free programming school CoderDojo in other cities of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the forthcoming period, and we invite all organizations and IT professionals who consider the CoderDojo project useful for improving the IT community in BiH to contact us at [email protected]

The software industry is the fastest growing and very dynamic industry and offers a lot of learning opportunities because acquired knowledge at the university is just the beginning of a long journey of  professional development. In order to better prepare students for their job in software industry, Bit Alliance organizes lectures BITA4students held by employees from the Bit Alliance members.

 

These lectures are a great opportunity for students to get familiar with current industry trends and learn more about the technologies used, the types of projects they can work on and the best practices in the field. BITA4students lectures are held regularly at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Sarajevo, and it is planned to extend this initiative to other faculties in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

 

Bit Alliance seeks to achieve good quality of cooperation with educational institutions and provide students with new opportunities for learning current technologies and methods of work in order to improve the on-boarding process from university to the workplace.