The public discussion around higher school reform, initiated by Vladimir Litvinenko, the rector of the St. Petersburg Mining University, continues. As Forpost found out, the management of all flagship Russian companies, without exception, considers the upcoming changes to be a necessary condition for quality growth of industrial production in the country. At the moment there is a catastrophic shortage of qualified engineers at the enterprises and the main reason for such a situation is the transition to the Bologna System which took place 20 years ago.
The common opinion of the largest employers is that the sustainable development of national economy should be based on a closer integration of universities and business. But today it is practically impossible due to the lack of a single regulator. For example, the Ministry of Labor is responsible for developing qualification requirements for engineering professions. And educational standards are developed by the Ministry of Education and Science. It is not surprising that they often do not correlate with each other.
Leonid Mikhelson, the chairman of Novatek's management board, said that he fully agrees with the approaches outlined in the draft strategy for radically improving the quality of training and using specialists with higher technical education (it was prepared by the Mining University). And he expressed the opinion that "the proposed changes will improve the quality of engineering personnel."
"A serious problem hindering the training of highly qualified engineering personnel for NOVATEK is the obvious lack of time allocated to practical training of students. Increasing the number and duration of production practices will give employers an opportunity to take an active part in the process of training young specialists, which will contribute to the formation of professional skills necessary for further work in the industry," Leonid Mikhelson stressed.
Almost all top managers of large companies and enterprises are convinced that the existing bachelor's curricula for the most part do not meet the needs of business. First and foremost, they are not satisfied with the short duration of the internship. It only takes place once in the third year, for a few weeks. This, of course, is not enough for young people to get into specific production processes, let alone take part in them.
Rauzil Khaziyev, General Director of Tatenergo, says that due to the peculiarities of production - hazardous and harmful working conditions, as well as legislative requirements, "today students' practice takes place in the form of review tours." Approximately the same situation is observed at other sites. Many guys on their return to their "alma mater" admit that they were only trusted to "paint curbs."
As a result, bachelor's graduates are forced to complete their master's degree in order to get a job in their specialty. But the state allocates far fewer budgetary places there. In addition, the second level of higher education is usually chosen by those who aim at the career of a scientist, not an engineer. This situation a priori leads to failures in the creation of a high-quality talent pool for industry.
Alexander Gilgenberg, general director of Apatit, PhosAgro's flagship enterprise, believes that the situation can only be changed if the educational process returns to a focus on professional skills.
"It is necessary that a student at some stage of his or her education could get a working profession during an internship at an enterprise or at a university's professional development center. The consolidation of theoretical knowledge with skills at production sites should become mandatory. That is why we suggest you consider the issue of increasing the hours of practical training and, if possible, carry it out during the whole school year," urged Alexander Gilgenberg.
Deputy General Director of Krasnoyarsk machine building plant Sergei Rusakov takes a similar view. He believes it is necessary to "include a "working semester" in the curricula" and "conduct an independent assessment of students' qualifications to confirm the level of professional skills they have acquired."
The president of the Russian Copper Company, Vsevolod Levin, reminds us that the quality of graduates largely depends on the level of applicants to institutions of higher education. If they are at an extremely low level, it is naive to expect that in four, five, or even six years, things will change dramatically.
"I consider it advisable to send a proposal to the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation to pay special attention to the quality of training in schools in mathematics, physics and chemistry, as well as the popularization of engineering specialties. This will help create a strong competitive environment among applicants," believes Vsevolod Levin.
Sergey Gustov, head of Gazprom Mezhregiongaz, "shares the concerns about the problems associated with the shortage of specialists with higher technical education." Among his proposals aimed at solving this problem is "participation of business representatives in joint development of educational programs in core disciplines". As for the industrial practice, its characteristics should be necessarily spelled out in the agreements on cooperation between universities and partner enterprises.
"In my opinion, mechanisms to improve the quality of students' practical training should be included in the content of cooperation agreements with educational organizations. It is not only the production practices themselves, but also open days, classes on the basis of educational and methodological centers of companies, joint management of diploma projects," - said Sergei Gustov.
Among the most radical proposals voiced during the discussion about the future of the higher school is a return to the system of the distribution of university graduates that existed during the Soviet Union. We should say at once: rumors that it was impossible to refuse to go to "a land far away" are an obvious exaggeration. Another thing is that young people in the case of such a demarche would lose all the benefits for aspiring specialists. For example, the opportunity to live in a dormitory or to be on a preferential waiting list for housing. According to some experts, in modern conditions these sanctions could be replaced with the obligation to return the funds spent by the state on training.
"Combining study and work by students is becoming an increasingly relevant topic, because it gives young professionals the opportunity to form a career trajectory, starting from the student's bench. The system of assigning and retaining students at specialized sites is necessary for modern production and can be implemented taking into account the new realities," believes Igor Kuzmin, General Director of ROSSETI Lenenergo.
In his opinion, higher school and industry "should develop as components of a single system" and jointly search for new mechanisms of training specialists of a wide profile. One example of such work is the opening of the company's energy class on the basis of school No. 334 in St. Petersburg. It was the Mining University that acted as a partner in this project. The goal is to train the new generation of power engineers, as they say, "from their youngest nails". If a teenager understands already at school where he wants to go to college and where he wants to build his career, his value to the Russian economy obviously increases.
By the way, PhosAgro trains its personnel in the same way. Specialized classes have been opened in all the regions where it operates. After passing the Unified State Exam, their students enter prestigious universities in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and then return home and take guaranteed jobs.
"I suggest that we pay attention to the experience of previous years and introduce the status of "Young Specialist" in companies for a better adaptation of graduates. In addition, develop a system of additional benefits and guarantees for social support of this category at the legislative level", - said Igor Kuzmin.
Taras Filipchuk, Director of Human Resources at the Crimean Soda Plant, also believes that the return of a number of norms that were abolished in the post-Soviet period will help improve the process of training engineers. We are talking about both the obligations of graduates to work for three years in the direction, and the obligations of the employer in relation to the newcomers. After all, with few exceptions, it is impossible to get a ready-made specialist directly from a university classroom.
"The drop in the quality of education throughout the professional training system is reducing employers' confidence in the college degree. As a consequence, according to public data, only 10-15% of university graduates are employed in blue-collar jobs. Businesses, applying a whole list of vacancies for positions of specialists of all kinds, are reluctant to hire young people without work experience. The more so, in most cases the approval of this or that candidate takes place "at the bottom". But the immediate supervisor in his day-to-day activities is concerned with a whole range of service tasks, he is not interested in taking responsibility for a person who needs to be constantly accompanied and trained without any guarantee of results," Taras Filipchuk commented on his position on returning to the distribution system.
Rauzil Khaziyev, General Director of Tatenergo, expressed his conviction that large industrial companies should introduce a separate staff unit - a mentor responsible for adaptation of young people. The presence of such an employee, whose duties include transferring practical skills to students and graduates to work with equipment, will a priori reduce the number of open vacancies.
Nevertheless, it will not radically solve the problem. In order to adequately respond to all the challenges of our time, we need a major restructuring of domestic higher education to meet the needs of the labor market. The success of this project will largely depend on the readiness of the Government to listen to the opinion of the university and business community.