Turkey in urgent need of 70,000 qualified IT professionals: Minister

ANKARA

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Turkey needs at least 70,000 qualified IT professionals right now and a number of certificate programs will be launched to meet this need, Science, Industry and Technology Minister Fikri Işık has said in an interview on Bloomberg HT television. 

“Turkey needs some 70,000 qualified information and technology workers immediately and this number will increase to over 300,000 in the following decade. Initially, we plan to offer coding training to young people. We have conducted joint research with the employment agency [İŞKUR] to define the target groups. In line with the results of the research, we’ll launch international certificate programs for the unemployed university graduates who are interested in IT business in the northwestern province of Kocaeli,” Işık added. 

The international certificate program will be launched through a cooperation of Gebze Technical University, Kocaeli University and İŞKUR, he said.  

“We’ll start to offer training to hundreds and we’ll gradually increase this number to thousands,” Işık said. 
Işık also added that the main aim should be to enable young people to get problem-solving skills. 

He said earlier that the software-encoding classes must be a part of the secondary educational curricula and be offered as optional classes in primary education.