Presidium meeting of the Council for the Implementation of Priority National Projects and Demographic Policy.
Dmitry Medvedev’s introductory remarks:
Presidium meeting of the Council for the Implementation of Priority National Projects and Demographic Policy
Today we have gathered for a meeting of the Council Presidium on the implementation of national priority projects. I’d like to remind you that education was an area of focus for us at the time when the idea of national projects was proposed. A lot of time has passed since then, nearly seven years. I believe that we have achieved certain goals in the system of education in general and, in particular, in the system of higher professional education.
We have met at the National Research University of Electronic Technology (MIET), which is certainly one of the leading Russian universities. Both issues on our agenda concern education. We will be discussing the implementation of development programmes at such universities as MIET and the use of information technology for improving the quality and accessibility of education.
Dmitry Medvedev: "Our universities cannot always meet the requirements of the modern economy, in which the share of knowledge-based high technologies has increased. Therefore, the improvement of our universities is among the priorities of our education project. Since 2007, we have been creating a network, which currently consists of 40 leading Russian universities, including traditional universities, federal universities, and national research universities like the National Research University of Electronic Technology."
Our universities cannot always meet the requirements of the modern economy, in which the share of knowledge-based high technologies has increased. Therefore, the improvement of our universities is among the priorities of our education project.
Since 2007, we have been creating a network, which currently consists of 40 leading Russian universities, including traditional universities, federal universities, and national research universities like the National Research University of Electronic Technology.
These universities are Russia’s leading educational institutions, and the Government wants them to serve as a reference point for all other schools to bring professional training to a new level. We want these universities to develop and test cutting-edge educational programmes and engage with Russia’s real economy so that domestic producers can have a say in the development of education. Our goal is to create a favourable environment for conducting research, including innovation centres and enterprises like the one we are currently visiting.
Every university has devised a development programme and has benefited from government support.
Dmitry Medvedev: "Universities are expected to become competitive internationally. I would like to remind you that the objective to bring Russian schools into the top 100 universities in the world remains relevant. Frankly, this is not a simple objective. Nevertheless, we will attempt to fulfil it. To this effect, the Government launched a special project in 2013 and selected 14 universities through open tender that received additional funding."
Furthermore, universities are expected to become competitive internationally. I would like to remind you that the objective to bring Russian schools into the top 100 universities in the world remains relevant. Frankly, this is not a simple objective. Nevertheless, we will attempt to fulfil it. To this effect, the Government launched a special project in 2013 and selected 14 universities through open tender that received additional funding. Total federal budget allocations under the project amount to 44 billion roubles up until 2016.
Not everything works out as planned, but there are improvements according to many criteria. Of course, the quality of education is the overarching criterion. I hope that this is reflected in the average score of the unified state exam and in the number of those wishing to enroll in select universities, including the most gifted and well-prepared students. Suffice it to say that last year more than half of the winners of the All-Russian Olympiad became students of precisely these universities which is, of course, gratifying to know, because it means that students and their parents, who are concerned about the future of their children, tend to be very careful when it comes to choosing the schools where they want to study. They don’t just send their children to schools based on considerations of an easy curriculum or schools that readily provide an education in exchange for money. Instead, they tend to choose prestigious universities with, accordingly, more challenging curricula. That’s what they do.
The employment of graduates is another important factor. Most leading universities are guided by the requirements of employers and use information provided to them for practical training and internships. This prepares students to be able to resolve practical problems, including in specific industries and regions, and, of course, helps find satisfying and rewarding jobs in their specific areas of training.
Positive changes in universities are also taking place in science. As many as 222 co-working centres that offer shared access to research equipment and experimental facilities have been built. This is important, because not all institutions of higher learning have private research facilities. About 800 small innovation-driven companies that we have created together with you are operating at universities, with quite a large number of students, graduate students and faculty members working there. We have information about the revenue from the commercialisation of their inventions. Of course, these estimates are fairly conventional, since calculating such revenue is a difficult proposition. However, the amount of revenue from the commercialisation efforts is believed to have exceeded 2.7 billion roubles in 2013. Universities are successfully participating in technology parks, regional innovation clusters and various technical forums. Frankly, almost no technology park or technology forum is complete without a base university. Ultimately, it’s not just the universities that benefit from this work, but our entire economy as well.
Overall, the results are good, but top federal and research universities could participate more actively in modernising higher education. Contacts with other universities are important, as is the mobility of students and faculty within the country, active implementation of online studies and e-learning, creating targeted student groups and a learning environment for students with health restrictions.
Dmitry Medvedev: "As you may be aware, only 2 percent of Russian schools had Internet access, mostly in Moscow, when we started this national project in 2006. By the end of 2013, general access had been provided across Russia. In a matter of several years, we have reached the European level of about seven users per computer."
It’s imperative that a modern system is created for evaluating the performance of universities. We are improving it all the time, too often perhaps, but this work still needs to be done, since we must understand how to evaluate achievements.
The second issue that I mentioned concerns computerising general education. As you may be aware, only 2 percent of Russian schools had Internet access, mostly in Moscow, when we started this national project in 2006. By the end of 2013, general access had been provided across Russia. In a matter of several years, we have reached the European level of about seven users per computer. Of course, not all of these computers are the most modern ones available on the market, but almost all schools in Russia have computer classrooms, almost everyone who has access to computers have their own websites and blogs. There are over 17,000 educational resources and thousands of websites in primary school subjects.
Students can evaluate themselves based on the results of school contests, including online ones, using automated systems. In this sense, access to education has certainly expanded. However, there are problems as well.
Speaking about the possibilities offered by remote access, remote access at schools has increased by 40 percent. About 70,000 children, including children with disabilities and children residing in rural areas, now have access to distance learning, which is exactly what we wanted to accomplish. That's good, but let’s not fool ourselves: such opportunities are rare.
Regarding high-speed Internet access... The notion of speed changes every year. Until recently, it was widely believed that Internet access via a wired telephone connection was a good Internet connection, and schools were quite happy with it. That was back when we started this programme in 2006-2007. Of course, now this speed is not satisfactory at all. When I mentioned that all of our schools are connected to the Internet – it's not just a matter of connection, it's a matter of speed as well, because the speed of access is what determines the ease of using the worldwide web. Speaking about percentages of availability of high-speed Internet, it is available at only about 10 percent of urban schools and 3 percent of rural schools, which is clearly not enough. This issue must be addressed, even though the regions may be experiencing financial difficulties. We must check steps in the programmes to modernise general education up until 2020 and focus on our underperforming regions.
Resource and methodological centres to support schools have been created as part of the Education national project. They should be used for upgrading online educational resources, because the quality of these resources varies: some of them are very good, but others are designed for totally different segments, in many cases, all they do is make cheat sheets, which does nothing to create knowledge and could even have the opposite effect.
E-textbooks are another topic. The Ministry of Education and Science approved their use effective 1 January 2015. This initiative is not about phasing out traditional paper textbooks, but about providing an alternative. In this respect, school students and their teachers should simply learn to use them so that they can do so when convenient or useful.
Dmitry Medvedev: "Speaking about the possibilities offered by remote access, remote access at schools has increased by 40 percent. About 70,000 children, including children with disabilities and children residing in rural areas, now have access to distance learning, which is exactly what we wanted to accomplish."
It is very important that IT helps school graduates choose their future occupation and acquire additional skills. I know that such opportunities will be provided as part of initiatives to develop vocational training in the regions.
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