Representatives of the leading Russian universities, libraries, publishing houses and officials who specialize in scientific and educational complexes have discussed ways of cooperation during the discussions that took place at the V Moscow International Education Fair (MIEF-2018).
MIEF is the largest event in the field of education in Russia, an open forum and the largest exhibition of new educational technologies, infrastructure and intellectual solutions. This year, the UNESCO Ministerial forum was held at the Fair with the participation of education ministers of member countries. The Fair is a platform for developing dialogue between educational and expert communities, state institutions and business circles on topical issues of the present and future education system in Russia and in the world.
The Fair was visited by more than 60 000 people, including the Minister of education and science of the Russian Federation Olga Vasilyeva, the Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets, the Deputy Minister of labor and social protection of the Russian Federation Lyubov Eltsova, the Director General of the Union "Young professionals (WorldSkills Russia)" Robert Urazov, etc.
The business program of MIEF included a number of panel discussions and round tables. The head of the competence center WorldSkills MEPhI Alexey Grekhov was a speaker in the round table "Engineering education: how do universities react to the latest technological trends?"; the round table "Support programs for talented students and postgraduates: experience of universities from 5-100 project" was attended by the vice-rector of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI Elena Vesna.
As part of her speech, Elena Vesna drew attention to the principles which form the basis of the system of individual support for gifted youth. The university pays special attention to the pre-University training. “Talent must be found as soon as possible. It is important not to lose it at the University and the person come to success as early as possible,” said the expert. The main trouble of universities, in her opinion, is that they "are not adjusted to work with gifted students."
A flexible learning system has been adopted in MEPhI. A student learns to design their own educational and career paths, has a set of different preferences. In addition, the peculiarity of the University is that MEPhI together with industrial partners has designed a special system of support for gifted students. Future physicists participate in contests, research projects, internships. "We have also created a system of intellectual competitions for our students. For example, MEPhI was ranked the first in the final of the first inter-University championship of WorldSkills Russia. This is the result of systematic work,” said Elena Vesna.
According to the Deputy vice-rector for academic and educational work of the Far Eastern Federal University Anna Tyshetskaya, due to the fact that in FEFU has "a system of professional modules from employers plus a special scholarship support from them" graduates "don't pass the competitive procedure at the enterprise, and immediately receive a workplace" after graduation.
As the moderator of the panel discussion "University cooperation with scientific organizations" Anna Urmantseva emphasized, universities should learn how to attract foreign students, enter the international rankings. At the same time, it is important to work together, coordinating activities of cultural, educational, research and production organizations participating in the common process.
According to Lyudmila Ogorodova, the Deputy Governor of the Tomsk region for scientific and educational complex, "the development of integration is a key task that needs to be solved for the effective development of large-scale projects in the interests of science and society." The region was offered to become a pilot one for the implementation of the strategy of scientific and technological development as a sub-sovereign with a large share of research.
"Today Tomsk is developing its agglomeration on the basis of the INOTomsk project. It is an interdepartmental project that combined the plans of ministries, industrial enterprises, and universities," she said, adding that a special mechanism to overcome interdepartmental barriers has been created for the project.
The expert of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor of Bauman MSTU Elena Lyapuntsova said that recently the University created "a School of technological entrepreneurship". The work involves bachelors and masters degree students from different universities who want to practice and understand what entrepreneurship is in a real interesting case. Experts of the School are cooperating with the RAS institutes, enterprises of small and average business.
MEPhI’s students took part in exhibitions, round tables, in the Ministerial Forum "Sustainable development goals 4: global dialogue on the use of ICT in education". The exposition of the University was enjoyed great success with future entrants. During the exhibition more than 2000 people came to the stand of MEPhI.
