Meeting of the Public Council of the Ministry of education and science concerning the topic "Universities: whom does higher school train and whom does the country need?"
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
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Meeting of the Public Council of the Ministry of education and science
concerning the topic "Universities: whom does higher school train
and whom does the country need?"
On November 19, 2008 a meeting of the Public Council of the Ministry of education and science concerning the topic "Universities: whom does higher school train and whom does the country need?"
Yaroslav Kuzminov, a member of the Public Council and a rector of the State university "Higher school of economics", gave a report. He informed that according to the researches at present more than half of Russian families considered higher education a very important thing for their child. More than one third believed that any higher education was better than good secondary education. Taking into account students and colleges Russia has 620 students for 10 thousand population today. It is 20% more than in the USA and Finland, taking the second and third place. There are 3 thousand universities and active branches for 7.5 million students. "University scale" in Russia is 2.5 thousand students which is much less than in developed countries.
Meanwhile, as Kuzminov stated, approximately 50% of students paid little attention to a "professional" component of curriculum, the same number went to work not by profession afterwards. The researchers showed that a large part of students imitated studying. Thus, almost a half of them used essays, reports and term papers downloaded from the Internet: 47.2% during the first year, 48.8% during the second, 50.9% during the third, 51.7% during the fourth. The solution of this problem could be a wide implantation of "anti-plagiarism" computer system which was already used in HSE. Such a system, according to Kuzminov, helped to reveal blocks of coincidence from the students' works with program's database. Alexander Chubarian, the director of the Institute of Universal History, said in his turn that it was necessary to change the system of education to teach independent thinking and analyzing events by reducing the amount of lectures and increasing the number of individual studies.
As the Minister of education and science of Russia Andrei Fursenko mentioned, a student had the right to learn badly, but a university had the right to expel him/her. Meanwhile, a Russian student got a diploma of state standard unlike in Europe, that meant "a student had a cross obligation to learn", stressed the Minister.
In 2007 the Ministry of education and science of Russia worked out a forecast of economic demands for qualitative personnel with various levels of professional education up to 2015, relying upon the branch and regional development programs of Russia. The forecast of developing the system of vocational education is built on the basis of the forecast of perspective economic demands for training personnel by the system of professional education. Thus, in 2015 the number of graduates will exceed economical demands to 364 750 people, concerning all groups of professions. At the same time, deficiency of specialists with primary vocational education will be 312 640 people.
At present superfluity of training professionals with higher vocational education is apparent. It will continue in sectors "Humanitarian sciences" and "Economics and management". The superfluity of training professionals with higher vocational education in 2015 (1.6 times more) will be caused by these very groups of specialties. Thus, university entrants who are going to choose the professions on law, economics or management this year may face troubles in job placement after their graduation.
The lack of professionals with higher vocational education will be apparent within the next few years in the following sectors: "Physical and mathematical sciences", "Informatics and computer engineering", "Consumer services", "Information security", "Natural sciences", "Geodesy and organization of land use", "Aviation and space-system engineering", "Weapon and armament systems", "Naval engineering", "Automatics and control", "Security of vital functions and environment protection".
The demand for specialists with secondary vocational education will exist in almost all sectors with the exception of "Humanitarian sciences" and "Economics and management". The most crucial deficiency of personnel with secondary vocational education will be apparent in the consolidated spheres of: "Metallurgy, machinery and metal-working", "Consumer services", "Energy, energy machinery and electrical engineering", "Applied chemistry and biotechnology", "Construction and architecture".
The extreme need in 2015 will be of all the specialists with primary vocational education.
