The SAP company, a leading provider of business software applications in collaboration with the association Kosice IT Valley officially launched a beginning of conceptual learning of SAP specialists on 9 th January, 2014. Signing the Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation in the congress center of the region ‘s largest IT company T – Systems by its signatories has launched a long-term educational project SAP Academy.
The executive director of Kosice IT Valley Joseph Ondáš announced that SAP Academy will be established at the Faculty of Science, UPJŠ in Košice. In addition, the current continuing education of Kosice IT Valley association members, as well as teachers and employees of IT companies, will be extended with the innovative study programmes offered for the academic year 2014/2015. Students of UPJŠ as well as of the Technical University will all be permitted to extend their skills and knowledge.
SAP is recognized as a leader in its industry. Currently, it has offices in more than 130 countries around the world and more than 100 million users. However, there has not been necessary support in the current educational system in Slovakia.
According to Associate Professor Dušan Šveda (Faculty of Science, University of Pavol Jozef Šafarik in Košice), SAP Academy will provide its services primarily in the training of future IT sector employees – current university students and later the secondary school students. The education system is set to generate 400 to 500 new IT specialists ready to work with SAP. ” This number is necessery in order to have 10,000 employees in the IT industry in 2020 within our region. There is a need to say that SAP specialists across the IT community are well paid,” he added. It is a cooperation between IT companies and universities within the association Kosice IT Valley that allows a highly efficient and professional education.
Project implementation gave Košice and Prešov potential to create 900 – 1200 new jobs in the medium term. These are supposed to shelter from administration, through the development of e – ABAP, design business processes, implementation and support of individual system modules to superuser for individual modules of the system working in the so-called Shared Service Centers).
According to Jozef Ondáš, SAP Academy project is inherently unique not only in Slovakia but also in Central and Eastern Europe. ” We know that many government organizations, as well as those in public and private spheres need SAP specialists. This is derived from the fact that the members of Kosice IT Valley, whose founding members include the University of Pavol Jozef Safarik , as well as other IT companies operating in eastern Slovakia plan to the maximum use of the creative potential of young people from all over Eastern Slovakia.
