More than a hundred students from Russian, Belarusian, and Armenian oil and gas higher schools arrived in St. Petersburg to participate in the Mining University summer schools. They include lectures in five subjects, practical classes at the Sablino training facility as well as visits to several enterprises of the city on the Neva and the Leningrad region. Such as Vyborg quarry management, Metrostroy, Zepellin Russland, and some others.
Before the pandemic, the summer school format gained enormous popularity, which is not surprising. After all, in essence, it is a very successful combination of education and recreation, when young people can not only get more knowledge and skills but also visit new cities and countries. The opportunity to see the spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Hermitage, St. Isaac's Cathedral, and in parallel to be trained on an independently selected program at the oldest higher technical school in Russia, has attracted many.
An additional motivation was the fact that all these activities are organized not only by the university but also by the International Center of Competencies in Mining Engineering Education under the auspices of UNESCO. In other words, it is a global structure, one of the tasks of which is to reduce the shortage of qualified engineers, which is typical for almost all countries of the world.
Representatives of China and Algeria, Spain and Poland, Germany and Austria, and many other countries came to the northern capital. All of them took back home not only bright impressions of white nights but also additional competencies, which, a priori, increase the competitiveness of specialists in the labour market.
Of course, there were no summer schools in 2020 due to the lockout, but this year it was decided to return to this practice. For obvious reasons, the number of guests was relatively small - only domestic universities from the Nedra Consortium and universities from the two post-Soviet republics of Armenia and Belarus sent their delegations to St. Petersburg. For them, such training programs as “Digital Mining”, “Oil and Gas Business” and several others were prepared. Another 40 people from Kazakhstan, whose field of training is related to geodesy, will improve their level online.
During the opening ceremony, Mining University Rector Vladimir Litvinenko emphasized the need to constantly update their knowledge and skills.
“Business today is interested in ensuring that a young professional who comes to work at a production facility is able to adapt to the new place as quickly as possible. For this purpose it is not enough to have a diploma of higher education, a modern graduate must have at least twelve additional competencies. We are talking, for example, about fluent foreign language and specialized computer programs, understanding of the technological cycle and enterprise economics,” explained Vladimir Litvinenko.
He pointed out that even the most advanced university today is not able to provide its students with the whole range of skills demanded by the market. The way out is in uniting efforts, integration, free access to the infrastructure of the flagship universities for all Russian students. The Nedra consortium of universities, created last year, is called to facilitate the implementation of this task at the national level.
"You shouldn’t think that somewhere abroad there are the most favorable conditions for you to realize your potential. This is not the case at all. Both you and your children will still remain migrants in the eyes of the local population. This means that all of us need to work to create appropriate ‘elites’ consisting of scientists, doctors, law enforcement officers. The nation should be proud of such people, professionals in their field, not semi-literate bloggers, who pass off their personal opinion or the opinion of those who pay them as the ultimate truth. But to improve the quality of life in Russia all of us, especially the younger generation, need to work very hard and diligently, gain new knowledge and, most importantly, learn to put it into practice,” summarized Vladimir Litvinenko.
Roman Samsonov, Vice President of the Russian Gas Society, also spoke at the opening ceremony of the Mining University Summer Schools. He noted that “any diamond needs a good cutter to become a diamond.” And for a student, it is desirable to have as many such cutters as possible. That is why participation in summer schools in St. Petersburg high school, which is "the alma mater of Russian mining," is an important step in the development of future engineers or scientists.
“If I had a time machine at hand, I would definitely advise myself to study not only English, but also Spanish, German, and French when I was young. It’s much harder to catch up when you’re older, but you have to do it. Because without the knowledge of languages, for example, now it is almost impossible to get acquainted with the best examples of engineering, technical progress,” said Roman Samsonov to the young people.
He also assured them that their choice of the profession related to the oil and gas industry was absolutely correct. And he urged them not to listen to those who say that this is “yesterday’s day”.
"If someone tells you such nonsense that oil and gas will die tomorrow, do not believe it. Even if it happens by the wave of someone’s magic wand, it will take us about 20 years just to dismantle this whole complex created by our fathers and grandfathers. But that won’t be necessary for a very long time. If you look at serious analytics, you will realize that for at least the next 30 years oil and gas will remain the basis of the global fuel and energy complex,” said the vice president of the RGS.
It should be noted that at the end of each summer school its participants will be certified and receive a certificate of acquiring additional competencies. Along with a diploma of higher education, it will be a passport to life and a competitive advantage in future employment.
