Among the main problems he named the transition to a two-tier system of higher education, as well as insufficient co-operation between universities.
On Wednesday, 6 May, a meeting of the Presidium of the Russian Union of Rectors was held. On the agenda was the issue of the need to improve the system of training for the mineral and raw materials complex of Russia. Rector of St. Petersburg Mining University Vladimir Litvinenko acted as a keynote speaker and reminded that more than 60% of our exports are fuel and energy products. And about half of all investments in the country's economy are made in projects related to prospecting, mining or processing of minerals.
This situation, regardless of the development of information and space technologies, machine building or any other sectors, will continue for several decades. This means that representatives of higher education "must clearly understand what problems the industry is facing today and what tasks they need to solve for its progressive development". Both in the field of scientific research and in terms of improving the competence of students who are to replace the current generation of engineers.
Vladimir Litvinenko noted that the domestic economy is an export-oriented model. At the same time, hydrocarbons are a unique resource for the development of chemical industries producing polypropylene, polyethylene and direct consumption goods - tyres, plastic furniture, windows and so on. The creation of such technological chains in Russia, the first link of which is oil or gas, makes it possible to receive 8 times more income from each tonne of raw materials than selling them abroad. But so far such enterprises are rather the exception than the rule. And to a large extent it is precisely because of the shortage of qualified engineers and economists, which seriously affects the competitiveness of the industry and related sectors.
"The industry's annual losses due to low resource and energy efficiency amount to 400-450 million tonnes of equivalent fuel per year, which is two budgets of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Another pain point is the extremely low coefficient of oil recovery from the subsoil in Russia - only 25-30 per cent. At the same time, the world's best practices allow us to bring it up to 70%, which means that we clearly have room to grow. In fact, increasing the recovery factor by only 1% will allow us to receive up to 20-25 billion dollars of additional revenues annually. If universities had solved this problem, the effect would have been very impressive," Litvinenko emphasised.
He also stated that the labour market has undergone qualitative changes in recent years, but many higher education institutions have not adapted to them and have not taken into account the peculiarities of modern demands for graduates on the part of employers. Today they need engineers with at least ten additional "narrow" competences. For example, knowledge of English, understanding of the economics of production processes, skills of working with special software. Today, the real cost of training one student, who will go to work in the industry in the future and whose demand makes up 95% of the total demand for personnel in the MSC, is at least 15 thousand euros per year.
At the same time, technical universities continue to train bachelors and masters, i.e. scientific and pedagogical workers, the demand for which does not exceed 5% and continues to fall. This has a direct impact on the growing shortage of personnel and contributes to the fact that low-skilled labour is increasingly used for oil production. In order not to be unsubstantiated, Vladimir Litvinenko demonstrated to the participants of the meeting what consequences this can lead to. He showed a video from one of the fields in the Komi Republic, where at the very end of April a well caught fire and two employees received burns on their bodies.
The only way out of this situation, according to the Rector of Mining University, is for engineering universities to abandon the two-tier education system and return to specialisation with the restoration of such a field of study as Economics of Industry. This will allow students to familiarise themselves with the technological peculiarities of production, which affect the financial performance of core companies. Such a conclusion, for example, has already been reached by British, German and Norwegian industry universities, which have abandoned the Bologna system in practice.
"It is necessary to increase the level of adaptation of universities to the demands of the labour market, expand the autonomy of educational organisations and reduce excessive state regulation. It is necessary to strive for individualisation of education, to revise the list of specialties and directions of scientific and pedagogical staff, in which degrees are awarded. We need to improve indicators for assessing the performance of universities, to form a unified educational space, which will increase the global mobility of students, postgraduates, teachers and scientists at the state and international level," Litvinenko said.
To create a unified scientific and educational environment, in his opinion, it is necessary to organise a consortium of universities engaged in training personnel for the mineral resources and fuel and energy complexes of Russia. It should include 22 specialised universities, as well as 160 institutions of higher education, whose curricula include 10 to 60% of training areas related to subsoil use. This non-profit organisation will develop the integration of industrial enterprises, ministries and universities. It will provide members with equitable access to modern educational and scientific infrastructure, including unique equipment and instruments. It will also be responsible for co-operating with business and making proposals to the government to improve human resources capacity.
"Collaboration on the basis of this consortium, as well as the International Centre of Competence in Mining Education under the auspices of UNESCO, will create conditions for the motivation of undergraduate and postgraduate students. An intellectual environment aimed at achieving the interests of the state economy will be formed. That is, to prepare a high-quality personnel reserve for scientific and pedagogical activities and work at industry enterprises," summarised Litvinenko.
Viktor Sadovnichy, president of the Russian Union of Rectors, who heads Moscow State University, called his speech "emotional and well-reasoned". He also noted that the task of the participants of the online meeting was "to work out proposals that will allow us to make optimal decisions to improve the quality of personnel training." After all, "the might of the country depends on it".
"During May we will hold a number of such conferences, during which we will listen to the opinion of heads of sectoral universities - medical, transport, pedagogical - on the topic of development of the system of personnel training for various sectors of the Russian economy. We will also create an analytical group that will summarise proposals on the development of higher education," Viktor Sadovnichy explained.
In the near future, Forpost will report on the rector community's reaction to Vladimir Litvinenko's report.