Meeting of the Presidium of the Presidential Council for the Implementation of Priority National Projects and Demographic Policy
Dmitry Medvedev’s introductory remarks:
Good afternoon, colleagues! Today’s meeting of the Presidium is focused on two quite concrete and therefore important issues. The first is training a modern workforce, and the second is providing housing for multi-child families.
I would like to start with the first one. Obviously, economic development requires a qualified workforce, which we currently lack. We often tour factories and see that they are well equipped but lack staff trained to operate the equipment.
The reasons are obvious. It must be admitted that in the Soviet period, we had a well-developed system of basic and secondary vocational education, but then it stopped moving forward and actually degraded, but the qualifications demanded of workers are gradually going up. Unfortunately, until recently the Russian system of vocational education was in a poor state.
Specialists were trained without consideration of the real needs of the labour market; college and technical institute graduates tended not to work in their specialisation, lacking both practical experience and real knowledge of production. Some time ago we tried to improve the situation. The national project Education included the objective of adapting vocational education to meet the needs of specific industries and regions, as well as to bring the education and production processes as close together as possible. Then those educational centres that successfully implemented modern programmes received material support.
To remind you, this was based on co-financing. Some of the funds came from the federal budget. In total, between 2007 and 2009, about nine billion roubles were allocated from the federal budget and almost the same sum was raised by regions, with funds from employers providing 63%. Why am I mentioning this? Because I believe it was good programme which made it possible to build modern vocational centres in a range of regions.
Dmitry Medvedev: "A priority task is to adapt the content, the forms and the technology of training in the working trades."
The federal targeted programme to develop education for 2011-2015 has set new approaches to the problem. The main emphasis is made on state support for regional vocational education. It is clear that the local authorities know much better what kind of workforce they need. During the Soviet times, there was a mistaken practice of making republican and even union authorities responsible for most vocational schools. But now we believe that all these vocational institutions should be of regional subordination, as only regional authorities can see how things are going and how to address imbalances in the local labour market, and can really anticipate workforce demand.
This programme and national project have created conditions for positive change at vocational training schools. I want to say that they now train young people in more than a thousand new trades and professions which are necessary for the national economy. This is very important, because I remember once visiting a city where two vocational schools for construction professions stood side by side, and, unfortunately, both schools were on their last legs. One result of our efforts is that graduates can find jobs in their professions and adapt to working conditions more easily. We are monitoring these efforts. A separate project is underway in the North Caucasus Federal District.
Clearly, we must carry on with this work. I’d like to say again that a priority task is to adapt the content, the forms and the technology of training in the working trades. So it’s very important for all authorities, including regional authorities, to maintain direct ties with businesses on this issue. We should more actively involve employers in developing public-private partnerships. The mechanism of this cooperation can vary.
There are a number of additional ideas. I know that the Ministry of Education and Science, together with the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Finance, have proposed a separate project for training people in the working professions in the regions, to be implemented jointly with the agencies of the IBRD – the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. We should probably use this potential. Let’s discuss this.
The second issue concerns improving housing for families with three or more children. Demography is one of the issues on which we have been working since we took up national projects. There are different forms of state assistance for families, including maternity capital, one-off payments for the birth of a child and childcare allowances. These measures have produced the desired result, although some were more effective than others. However, it is obvious that the situation with large families is more complicated and they have more financial problems. But their biggest problem is inadequate housing, and the majority of these families are unable to deal with it alone, which we need to understand.
There are over one million families with three or more children in Russia. At least 15% of them – though, honestly, I think this is a conservative, underrated figure – need better housing. Housing is issued to them under social rent contracts, but only in small amounts – for understandable reasons, partly because we now provide housing under social rent contracts in exceptional cases, and also because conditions, including housing and land prices and living standards, vary from region to region. But it’s obvious that only the regional and municipal authorities can help large families. We should consider ways to invigorate this work.
I’ll list several possibilities. First, we should continue providing land plots to these families for building individual houses. Since 2012 we have issued around 120,000 land plots, which means that we have helped less than half of those who planned to use this form of government assistance – there are around 300,000 such families. Moreover, these land plots are often far from the best, are located away from residential areas in the middle of nowhere and do not even have the necessary infrastructure. It appears that these land plots are only being issued to show that the authorities are complying with the law. So the regions should review and adopt without delay bylaws to regulate the procedure for issuing land plots with due regard to the situation in the given region and taking into account that the problems of large families differ from region to region. Anyway, the land plots issued to such families must at least have the necessary infrastructure.
Second, we should continue introducing special mortgage products for families with three or more children. Of course, we can also promote various forms of assistance like housing cooperatives by helping them with their utility connections including electricity, water and gas supply. I know that you are working towards this end, but I think you should put more effort into it. The Agency for Housing Mortgage Lending has developed a programme entitled Housing Cooperatives for Large Families, and has refinanced around 4,000 such loans and also charges lower interest, but there is still a lot more to do.
Dmitry Medvedev: "Large families should be able to choose between a land plot for building individual houses and social rent housing."
Third, I believe that large families should be able to choose between a land plot for building individual houses and social rent housing. We have drafted a law on amending the Land Code, according to which families with three or more children which refuse to accept land plots should be provided with social rent housing out of turn. However, we should assess our possibilities realistically, because, as I have said, we do not use the social rent system very often and we need to understand if this system can be effective and that it will not create a new queue in addition to the social rent queues that formed back in the Soviet era.
Let’s discuss this scenario, listen to reports and consider new measures that can be taken. Let’s first listen to a report on the first issue, and then I’ll give everyone else an opportunity to express their opinions in the form of a short supporting report. Then we’ll listen to the second report and our colleagues’ views, and only then will we discuss it in the group. Mr Livanov, please proceed.
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