Mikhail Mishustin: “To achieve technological leadership effectively, we must significantly reduce the gap between engineering education and the needs of industries. This should be accomplished primarily through intensive practical training at enterprises.”
Mikhail Mishustin holds strategic session on development of educational institutions providing engineering training and scientific research for technological leadership
Mikhail Mishustin holds strategic session on development of educational institutions providing engineering training and scientific research for technological leadership
Mikhail Mishustin holds strategic session on development of educational institutions providing engineering training and scientific research for technological leadership
Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Colleagues, good afternoon.
Today, we will discuss the development of engineering and technical education. Training specialists for these strategically important fields is a key component of implementing national technological leadership projects.
We have already laid the groundwork for a systemic approach to organising the work of specialised universities and colleges and identified the challenges they face.
The next step is to improve engineering training programmes and strengthen scientific and technological research.
We must more actively expand and deepen cooperation between secondary and higher technical education institutions and companies.
It is essential to clearly understand which specialists are needed, in which sectors, and in which regions, so that we can respond promptly to rapid changes in the labour market – an issue we have recently discussed. These shifts are happening quickly, and educational systems must be finetuned to reflect evolving workforce demands, which we must implement.
For example, in some regions of the Russian Federation, demand for skilled blue-collar workers exceeds the number of graduates severalfold. Such imbalances must be addressed as quickly as possible.
An important new tool in this effort is the workforce demand forecast, developed at the President’s instruction.
For the upcoming academic year, we have established detailed quotas for targeted admissions based directly on requests from employers for the first time. These quotas are distributed across universities, enrollment capacities, specialties, and fields of study, including scientific disciplines.
Colleagues, it is clear that to effectively achieve technological leadership, we must substantially narrow the gap between engineering education and industrial needs. This should be achieved primarily through extensive hands-on training at enterprises. This approach is particularly important given that many companies already consider this model of cooperation with universities and colleges a priority.
The same principle applies to teachers and mentors. They must have broad opportunities to upgrade their qualifications and gain up-to-date industrial expertise, and strengthen competencies related to technological leadership. For this, two specialised technology parks for vocational education are already operating in Kaluga and Nizhny Novgorod.
More to be posted soon…
