APKIT approved the regulations for the certification of IT specialists in Russia

The regulation refers to the work of supplier certification centers accredited by software developers or technology providers. APKIT will confirm the accreditation of these centers, evaluate the content of the tests and resolve controversial situations.

According to Anna Vodolazskaya, chief innovation officer at Softline Academy, the regulations are designed to help companies build an independent system for assessing the competencies of IT staff. To do this, it is necessary to coordinate the work of suppliers, IT companies and large corporate clients.

As Kommersant notes, the APKIT initiative is developing in parallel with projects aimed at assessing the qualifications of IT specialists in Russia.

Natalya Pochinok, chairwoman of the Council for the Development of IT Specialist Certification at APKIT, said that the certification will be implemented in stages and that in the first stage not all mechanisms will be fully operational. The association also plans to cooperate with the Ministry of Digital Development for the possible recognition of certificates, but the ministry has not yet received the corresponding proposal, the department added.

Borlas group vice president of consulting Dmitry Kichko notes that after the departure of foreign suppliers, the Russian certification market experienced a shortage. This made it difficult for specialists to confirm their skills and for employers to select candidates based on their certificates. Competition in this area, he stated, will stimulate improvement in the quality of certification.

The head of the Linx Cloud integration department, Dmitry Shchegolkov, believes that the systems of the Ministry of Digital Development and APKIT can coexist: one is oriented towards theoretical standards, the other towards their practical application. Vladimir Bibanov, CEO of 1C Pro Consulting, adds that the separation of systems is justified, since vendors’ products contain many specific features, while general IT skills remain universal.

As Kommersant reported in mid-September in reference to a preliminary version of the “Personnel for Digital Transformation” project, Russia proposed creating a system to verify the skills of software developers. In the current version of the project, program expenses will amount to 41.3 billion rubles from the budget and 630 million rubles from extra-budgetary sources.

It is expected that in 2025 the certification system will confirm the competencies of 20 thousand specialists, and in 2030 this number will increase to 250 thousand, according to the preliminary version of the project.