Staff assistance of educational programs in the sphere of information security: design and development problems

Abstract

An increase in civilization risks and threats, and the development of information technologies actualize the questions of information security. The need for information security specialists is sharply increasing. This requires the solution of a number of managerial, organizational, substantive issues related to the organization and implementation of educational programs on information security including staffing issues. In such conditions the issues of teaching staff potential development, formation of the necessary up-to-date knowledge and competences of teachers for qualitative training of future specialists become urgent and in-demand. Mass retraining of teachers becomes the most important task in providing information security specialists for the digital economy. The methodological basis of the study is the provisions of education sociology reflecting the problems of matching the human resources needs for the digital economy, import substitution and national security with the quantity and quality of specialist training in higher educational institutions of vocational education.The aim of the research is to identify employers' demands for information security specialists' competences for formation of professional educational programs and demands of teachers engaged in information training for actual knowledge, abilities, skills, which availability will ensure innovativeness in training of young specialists. The main hypothesis was that there is a mismatch between the demands of the external environment of higher education, above all, employers and the capabilities of the educational system, there is an urgent need to increase the capacity of teachers involved in training professionals in the field of information security. The reasons for this mismatch are (1) the dynamic development of technology, the emergence and increase of cyber threats and cyber incidents, (2) the presence of objective problems in the development of educational institutions staff capacity - the low proportion of young personnel, inadequate interaction between educational institutions and industrial and research centers, inadequate scientific and educational mobility of teaching staff for skills development.The needs of employers and teachers have been identified on the basis of empirical research (autumn, 2021) conducted by the authors. 103 teachers and 109 employees of enterprises which carry out functions on maintenance of information security of organizations and enterprises (mainly SFD) participated in sociological research.Results: requirements of employers and teachers on information security actual knowledge, abilities, actual programs of professional development and professional retraining were revealed. The practical significance of the results is that the study can reveal the problems of design and development of educational programs on information security and formulate recommendations for the design.