Society

A regular General Meeting of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO was held in Moscow. It was opened by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who emphasized that in recent years our country had been ”aggressively trying to be squeezed out” from the governing and auxiliary bodies of various international structures. Including the UN Specialized Agency for Education, Science and Culture.

This honour was bestowed on 32 people.

The Rector of the Empress Catherine II St. Petersburg Mining University held a working meeting with representatives of Latin American universities. Delegations from Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and Ecuador took part in the meeting.

A major international congress ”Africa Seeks Solutions”, attended by heads of leading universities, representatives of executive and legislative authorities, scientists and businessmen from more than 40 countries of the sunny continent, ended in St. Petersburg. Many of these countries have even more mineral resources per capita than Russia, but are unable to monetize them and use them to improve the quality of life of the population.

The initiative group of the new community includes higher education institutions supported by their Governments. This will allow them to participate on equal terms in the implementation of partnership programmes envisaged by the agreement.

The idea for this forum was born during the II Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum. On Tuesday, 12 December, the Empress Catherine II St. Petersburg Mining University hosted the opening ceremony of the International Congress ”Africa Seeks Solutions”. More than 100 heads of leading universities, representatives of executive and legislative authorities, as well as big business from more than 40 countries of the continent are taking part in the Congress.

The discovery of the largest field in Russia and the seventh largest in the world, called Samotlor, was a resounding victory for Russian geologists and drillers in 1965. At that time, few believed in the prospects of an oil deposit located under a huge lake, surrounded for many kilometres by impassable swamps.

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.