On February 20 MEPhI has held a meeting of the Federal Educational-Methodical Association in the system of higher education in the enlarged group of specialties and areas of training “Nuclear power and technology”. The event was also attended by the universities – members of the Association “Consortium of universities supporting the State Corporation “Rosatom”; some regional universities joined the event in the webinar mode.
The meeting was opened by the Chairman, the first vice-rector of MEPhI Oleg Nagornov. In the welcome speech he formulated the general tasks that today the Federal Association has, and invited to discuss topical issues – in particular, the announced by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation refusal from specialist degree students in higher education in core for MEPhI areas.
MEPhI vice-rector on educational affairs Elena Vesna noted that the proposed refusal of the specialist's degree in nuclear field will require universities of Association to take considerable effort to radically revise already working programs of training personnel for the nuclear industry. MEPhI representative suggested universities to think about the practice to move from a specialist to bachelor degree without loss of competences.
The question if we need a specialist today (and if so – in what amount) has caused an active discussion among the participants. An opinion was expressed by representatives of the employer as well.
In particular, the Director of educational programs of the Rosatom Department of personnel management Vladimir Karezin doubted that the shorted course will be able to provide the required level of training for developers of new nuclear technologies. He noted that annually the Corporation reviews the needs of the enterprises, forming a plan for the next 10 years, and in this respect there is an order both for bachelors, masters and specialists.
Then Karezin proposed for discussion his wishes for the development of new educational programs. In particular, he stressed that the Corporation, which is now focused on international markets, desperately needs professionals with good knowledge of a foreign language, and suggested it be considered.
During the meeting there was held the first hearing of an approximate educational program in the enlarged group of specialties and areas of training “Nuclear power and technology”. The member of the working group, the Head of the MEPhI Department B.A. Kalin presented the report on educational program in a direction 14.05.03 “Technology of isotope separation and nuclear fuel” for initial discussions. In future the program will have to go through internal review and professional discussion. In case of successful examination it will be offered to the Ministry of Education and Science for approval as a reference for possible replication in universities that train specialists in this area.
One of the issues also put on the agenda of the meeting was the participation of the universities, offering nuclear programs, in Russian Student Olympiad, held under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. A member of the Educational and Methodological Association, head of the MEPhI Master's degree programme Department A.M. Maslennikov stressed the importance of universities participation in this Olympiad so that it can improve the quality of training and identify talented young people and form personnel potential. He noted that the participation results are an objective indicator of the quality of training in higher education institution, and are taken into account in self-examination of the University, and also in the national university rankings.
Continuing the work to improve the quality of personnel training for nuclear industry members of the Federal Educational and Methodological Association reviewed the working groups in each area in the field of “Nuclear power and technology” and outlined the ways of further development of nuclear education.
