Society

It includes the construction of new dormitories and an educational complex, as well as the implementation of a pilot project to improve the system of higher education in Russia and scaling its results to the whole country.

The size of the state scholarship for students today is 2,819 rubles. Even taking into account the additional payments for those who study ”excellent” and ”good”, and they amount to 50% and 25% of the basic rate, respectively, these funds are not enough even for food. Obviously, when entering university, young men and women rely primarily on the support of their parents. But what should a young man do if his family for one reason or another cannot or does not want to provide him with material support?

More than 90% of first-year students of the Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University who were enrolled in bachelor’s degree programmes took advantage of the offer to transfer to 5.5-year specialisation programmes. This became possible due to the participation of the first technical university of Russia in the pilot project to improve the system of domestic higher education, which was initiated by President Vladimir Putin.

Today, business coaches often hear the ”cautionary tale of the life of Parkes Cadman”, who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. A boy from a poor family, from the age of 11 he was forced to work in a mine as a ”ponyboy” - driving a coal wagon. At the unloading point he always kept a book and for the standard 120 seconds while the cart was being unloaded he managed to read a page or two. In 10 years the young man managed to devour more than a thousand books, as he was convinced that ”only education can get him out of the mine”.

In December, the Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University will host the International Congress ”Africa Seeks Solutions”, during which the Russian-African Consortium of Technical Higher Education Institutions will be established and the relevant founding documents will be signed. The task of the new structure will be to develop and coordinate co-operation between the parties in the field of education and science, as well as to promote sustainable development of the extractive and processing sectors.

The Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University and China University of Mining and Technology (CUMT) have prolonged the international co-operation agreement. Rector of the first technical university of Russia Vladimir Litvinenko and his colleague from China Song Xuefeng put their signatures on the document. They emphasised their mutual desire for closer integration.

Behrouz Abtahi, Vice Chancellor for International Relations of Iran’s Shahid Beheshti University, paid a working visit to the Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University. During the meeting with the Dean of the Mining Faculty Oleg Kazanin he discussed the prospects of co-operation between the two universities in the field of research related to deep-sea mining of solid minerals.

This season seven scientists from the oldest technical university of our country will go to the White Continent. On Thursday, 9 November at the Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University a working meeting was held between the rector Vladimir Litvinenko and the participants of the glacioburrowing team, who are going to the scientific station Vostok next week. It is located at the Pole of Cold - in 1983, the lowest temperature on Earth in the history of meteorological observations was recorded there - minus 89.2 degrees centigrade.

More than 300 congratulatory telegrams and letters have already been sent to Russia’s first technical university. The first to congratulate the Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University was Russian President Vladimir Putin on the eve of the holiday. He wished the faculty, staff, students, postgraduates and graduates of the institution of higher education success and all the best.

The Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University opened a historical and documentary exhibition dedicated to the outstanding students of Russia’s first higher technical education institution. The exhibition is based on the documents of the Central State Historical Archive of the city on the Neva River, as well as the funds of the university itself, other educational institutions, various enterprises and organisations.