Взаимоотношения с производством – неотъемлемая часть политехнического образования
Quality staff training is one of the key directions for any university. With this in mind, universities enter into various forms of cooperation with the employer, accepting requests from enterprisies for the training of industry experts, training students at production sites, opening offices in partner companies, etc. On November 11, during the Russia Today televised Q&A sessionthe best university cooperation practices and their implementation were discussed. First Vice-Rector Vladimir V. Glukhov and press secretary Dmitry I. Kuznetsov talked about SPbPU cooperation with enterprises for student career training.
The session is dedicated to the information support for generation and development of innovations that further enhance the competitiveness of educational clusters covering four Russian cities: St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, and Samara. Other session participants were delegates from Moscow Financial University, MIPT, Samara State Aerospace University, and Kazan National Research Technological University. The experts discussed the organization of cooperation between the university and the industry, and expanded upon the impact of enterprises on the universities' education programs. The session was organized with the assistance of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.
Vladimir V. Glukhov, Senior Vice-Rector at Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, pointed out the relevance of the session's subject, particularly for engineering education and real economy. "The enterprises' approach to staff training has changed drastically in the last 5 years, and what we see now is a new philosophy: enterprises seek to go along the way with universities in this matter." - Vladimir Viktorovich explained. Thus, Rosatom intentionally allocates resources for SPbPU delegates to accompany the company's experts on visits to the schools of the North-West region in order to pick out the most talented children to undergo training in the company.
Heads of enterprises also focus on this issue. They want to monitor the performance of potential employees from the very first years of education. That is why major experts from the companies give master classes and lectures to students at SPbPU, and the education process is partly carried over to the production site. Today, enterprises have come up with numerous ways of motivating students to come on board. These include report, essay, and thesis contests as well as scholarships.
"Our goal is to train engineers who would be way ahead of the state of development of technologies and equipment. Courtesy of the Ministry of Education and Science, our university has got state-of-the-art laboratories that even enterprises may envy. We need it to train skilled engineers who are familiar with all advanced technologies in the industry," Vladimir V. Glukhov observed.
Answering the moderator's question on which university is most effective – the one that works according to the goals of the enterprise or the one that points students to production goals – Vladimir Viktorovich said: "If our graduates manage to find work in their major, it means the result has been achieved. However, we believe that the first stage is not enough to assess the university's success. For us, success means that the graduate can go further in his career according to his major. Not only has he found a job as an engineer at an enterprise, but also has made the second step: he's been noticed, his work has been recognized, he's been promoted – that's a career."
Dmitry I. Kuznetsov, Vice-Rector and Press Secretary, gave an account of SPbPU experience in cooperation with enterprises: "The relationship between the university and the industry is an integral part of our education, it's our system, our way of life. That is why we as a technological university see our goal in training engineers ahead of their time."
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