The main one, but not the only one, is the presence of six universities, which are implementing a new concept of higher education in Russia in connection with our country's withdrawal from the Bologna process.
On Tuesday, June 20, higher education institutions began accepting documents from young people applying for education at the expense of the state. According to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, just over 590 thousand places are available for the applicants. As before, most of them are allocated to Bachelor's degree programs, the duration of which is 4 years.
The Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University, which participates in the pilot project on higher education reform, became an exception. In total, 2416 budgetary places are created there, with 940 places on the bachelor's degree, 415 on the master's degree, and 982 on the specialist's degree. By comparison, last year the numbers were quite different: the bachelor's degree was 1,139, and the specialist's degree - 732.
The greatest growth - more than 200 places - was recorded in the areas of training related to mining and oil and gas. This is logical, considering that the Mining University is a source of personnel for companies working in the mineral and raw materials sector. In spite of this, the university thinks that the minimum passing score for entering the specialized educational programs, due to their high demand among the applicants, will not be the lowest. However, it will not be the highest either. The leaders are likely to be Chemical Technologies, Construction of Unique Buildings and Structures, and Information Systems and Technology.
"This year we revised the admission limits, and for the first time in many years we have more budgetary places at the specialist level than at the bachelor level. In other words, St. Petersburg Mining University has taken a confident step toward exiting the Bologna process and making a smooth transition to training engineers within 5-6 years. This decision was fully supported by employers, who repeatedly indicated a high interest in specialists with the necessary level of fundamental and practical training. It can be achieved through the implementation of educational programs for more than 4 years. According to the management of companies and businesses, this approach allows to significantly increase the competitiveness of graduates at the labor market, "- said the executive secretary of the Mining University admissions committee Denis Pelenev.
This decision required the management of the university to look for new, non-standard ways to attract applicants. After all, it is obvious that in recent years the interest of adolescents and young men to enroll in higher technical schools has fallen markedly. Fewer and fewer high school students are taking the Unified State Exam in math and physics, which is required for admission to most fields of study. This leads to a decrease in competition and a drop in the quality of first-year students who want to become engineers in the future, i.e. to enter a major.
"Guidance work with applicants is more important today than ever before. We have to reach every talented schoolchild, no matter how far from St. Petersburg he/she lives, to explain him/her and his/her parents the advantages of studying at the specialty programs of the Mining University. Yes, someone may think that it is much easier to save time, to get a bachelor's degree closer to home and to get a diploma a year or two earlier. But in the eyes of our partners from Gazprom, Novatek, Rosneft, Russian Copper Company, PhosAgro, and many other flagships of the national economy, such graduates will obviously be less competitive," says Ruslan Babkin, Director of the Center for Pre-University and Special Programs at the Mining University.
One of the innovations that should help attract the most promising young men and women is the School Leader program. Its essence is that students who have successfully passed the Unified State Exam in the subjects required for admission to the first year of the oldest technical university in Russia will be able to take part in the competitive selection for one of the 500 industry grants. It provides guaranteed enrollment for free education in July, when the competition for public places is in full swing, compensation of the money spent on the ticket to St. Petersburg, mandatory extra pay for scholarships and the opportunity to choose a place in the hostels on a priority basis.
Today more than 800 people have applied for the competition, but the registration for those who want to enter the Mining University under this program is still open. Applicants can apply if their score according to the results of the unified state exam is not lower than the average score for a particular field of study in 2022. There is no risk here. The results will be announced on July 5, well before the end of admission for free places, so those who will not receive a grant, will have enough time to choose another strategy for admission.
It should be noted that the distinctive feature of this year's campaign was not only the participation of six Russian universities in the pilot project for the reform of higher education. Another innovation is the creation of favorable conditions for the children of participants of the SSE, as well as graduates of certain schools of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions, who, for objective reasons, had no opportunity to prepare qualitatively for the Unified State Exam and, as a consequence, to pass it successfully.
