The first stage of the Jóvenes a Programar project, announced by President Tabaré Vázquez at the Council of Ministers meeting in La Coronilla in September 2016, began with the training of 1,000 young people.
Last Friday an agreement was signed between Plan Ceibal and the National Institute for Employment and Vocational Training (INEFOP) to finance 790,000 dollars of training for young people between 17 and 26 years of age with an approved basic cycle.
The project aims to broaden the possibilities of labour insertion in an area with a high demand for skilled human resources, said INEFOP director Eduardo Pereyra.
Pereyra recalled that the demand was raised by the Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technology (CUTI) which led to the emergence of Jóvenes a Programar.
Youth to Program
INEFOP and Plan Ceibail pointed out that the programme will train young people in three programming languages demanded by the industry (.Net, Genexus or WebUI) and testing, and they will be taught technical English and transversal skills.
And they stressed that young people do not need previous experience to participate.
The course is free of charge and lasts for nine months with a timetable of six hours per week, and covers the whole country in groups of 20 to 25 participants.
The general manager of Plan Ceibal, Fiorella Haim, highlighted that Jóvenes Programar allows, in principle, 1,000 young people to have "basic training so that they can get closer to programming and so that the field is not seen as something inaccessible and they think that they cannot work in this sector".
Haim pointed out that the participants may be working or studying, and that the course "allows them to have a first approach to later enter the labour market or continue to deepen their knowledge in these areas".
Regarding the contents, he said that they are agreed with the companies, which are the ones that will end up hiring the young people, although he explained that there is no specific agreement with the companies for this. "It's not automatic," he said, "but the companies are participating in the whole process, in the design of the courses, there are teachers who are from the companies, and they are very interested in this. They are investing hours of their people because it is something they see as necessary," he explained.
Finally, on the selection criteria for the first 1,000 young people, he pointed out that they were first based on the basic requirements of age and basic education, and then a test was carried out and the selection was made on the basis of the results.
Source: La República
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