IIA “Rossiya Segodnya” has held a multimedia conference which has presented a research “Entrant’s navigator: Russian colleges 2016” as a part of “Social navigator” project. This year 977 colleges of 48 Russian regions have taken part in it (664 in 2015), which, in experts’ opinion, speaks about growth of interest in secondary vocational education in Russia.

What are the minimum and maximum grades in a middle school diploma of those who get state-subsidized education? What is the biggest admission for state-subsidized education? Which professions have the top competition? Where is the most expensive education? – these and other questions have been discussed by experts in education.

Deputy Head of the apparatus of the State Duma Committee on Education in the RF Alexei Mayorov reminded that in the Soviet Union 50 % of the students chose secondary vocational education, and the other half studied in higher education institutions. In 2000s the proportion changed: 80 % graduates entered universities, 20 % - colleges. “Now 42 % go to colleges, which has a positive reflection on the quality of higher education in Russia”, – he noted.

Experts claim that the educational path comprising studying in a college gives the graduates competitive advantages in terms of their employability.

“For several decades our country has experienced a real deficit in blue-collar workers, - the vice-rector on educational and methodical work of MEPhI Elena Vesna has claimed. – Our customers who include enterprises of high-technology industries of production, first of all, Rosatom, need secondary vocational education graduates as well as university ones, and we are ready to offer them interesting working places and good salary”.

According to the expert, MEPhI has a large experience in training of specialists by secondary vocational education programs. Nowadays 18 university departments realise secondary vocational education programs, 90 % of the graduates are successfully employed.

At the same time, expert in educational process has said that there are problems which reflect on the quality of specialist training like material and technical facilities of an institution. In MEPhI a half out of 18 regional departments realizing secondary vocational education programs are higher education departments, and in this case the quality of training is significantly better.

The majority of experts have decided that the system of secondary vocational education needs a kind of rebranding so that the college graduate could be viewed by the society “not as a worker in dirty uniform, but as a highly trained specialist having concrete skills”.