During his visit to Buryatia, Vladimir Putin held a meeting on the implementation of the program for the development of the Russian Far East. He noted that over the past ten years, significant results have been achieved in improving the region's economy, infrastructure, and social sphere. However, in order to radically improve the quality of life there, create a comfortable and safe urban environment, improve the business climate, and reduce the anthropogenic impact on nature, painstaking work in this direction must continue.
What mechanisms can be used to solve the problems pressing for the Far East and to open up new opportunities for education, employment, and self-fulfillment for the residents of this part of the country? According to the rector of St. Petersburg Mining University Vladimir Litvinenko, who spoke to the president via videoconference, it is necessary to consolidate efforts in three areas. And first of all, to eliminate the staff shortage.
"The Far East is at least three times larger than Canada in terms of its natural resource potential. Monetization of its natural capital will make it possible to create 2 million additional jobs and increase Russia's GDP several times over. But in order to do this we have to urgently solve the problem of a shortage of engineers, which already reaches 80% at mining companies," said Vladimir Litvinenko.
He thanked Vladimir Putin for the decision to return to the traditional basic system of higher education, the specialist diploma and to abolish the Bachelor's Degree program, which does not provide students with the competencies required to work in the actual plants. However, he specified that practical implementation of this idea voiced during the President's address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation may be delayed.
"Today about 30 thousand people are annually enrolled in nine leading universities in the Far East. But only 260 places are allocated for studying mining, which is the most in-demand specialty in the region. Three leading universities in the region have stopped enrollment in specialized fields altogether. This is a disastrous situation that must be changed urgently," said the rector, after which he suggested introducing a norm of financial deductions for mining companies in the amount of up to 0.2% of their revenues.
These funds should go to universities and be spent on training of engineering staff and university science, which is quite logical. After all, the educational process is quite costly. The cost of training a specialist, taking into account the need to pay for teachers, utilities, modern laboratory and classroom equipment, and infrastructure upgrades, is approximately half a million rubles per year. Vladimir Litvinenko pointed out that the Mining University itself spends twice as much on these purposes. A similar practice exists in Canada and Norway where mineral resource companies give 1.5-2% of their profits to universities.
Another, no less serious problem, the head of Russia's first technical university believes that regional authorities have no legislative right to regulate subsoil use. Whatever tasks are to be solved by business, they have to be solved exclusively in Moscow, which creates additional difficulties and often "kills" the initiative at the local level.
"It is urgent to return the governors to participation in the state regulation of the mining and oil and gas industry. They should have a "second key". Otherwise, the development of companies and regions will be artificially hindered." Vladimir Litvinenko thinks that we should not always wait for the go-ahead from the capital to start working with deposits.
He reminded that Russia is a country rich in raw materials and has nearly the whole Mendeleev Table in its bowels. Taking into account high material intensity of progressive technologies, including electric cars and alternative energy sources, there is no doubt that the demand for minerals, especially copper, nickel, lithium, rare-earth metals and many other resources will continue to grow in the future.
This means that the Far East, like other regions of the country, has excellent prospects for sustainable development. But in order to realize them, it is vital for us to increase the efficiency of involving raw materials in deep processing, develop the domestic market, and replenish reserves, including the creation of a modern registry, which was last structurally updated back under the Soviet Union. But this will only be possible if the state assumes the function of regulator. That is, it will become the center of decision-making aimed at the development of the most important sectors of the national economy.
"What amount of resources should be extracted from this or that field and then involved in deep processing in order to produce final consumer goods inside the country, what technologies should be created or adapted to make it possible, how many engineers should graduate from universities every year... These and many other tasks should be formulated by the state, creating conditions for their solution by business and the scientific and educational community, as well as ensuring proper supervision of the implementation of these requirements. Only this way we will be able to regain our status of a high-tech state, to unlock our unique raw material and intellectual potential, to ensure progressive social and economic development of Russia," summarized Vladimir Litvinenko.