Report - UNDP Russia

1. The number of graduates with engineeringdegrees far exceeds real demand in the economy. Thesituation is exacerbated by the fact that these largenumbers are achieved by significantly loweringadmission standards. There need to be far stricteradmission thresholds, and state funding of tuitionshould be on a per student basis.2. Universities are no longer making a cleardistinction between creative engineers and simpletechnicians. Both spent the same amount of timestudying and are often taught using the exact sameprogrammes. The existing engineering professions, inwhich universities offer training (including powerengineering professions), are often defined toonarrowly. We believe that universities must shift assoon as possible to two-stage training, where the firststage offers very broad bachelor degrees (for thosewho plan to continue their education majoring in anarrower field) and applied bachelor degrees fortechnicians, and where the second stage offersmaster’s degrees for creative engineers specializing inspecific fields.3. Engineering universities do not allowstudents to choose between courses. This reducesstudents’ interest in the process of acquiringknowledge and their motivation to seek a job in theirchosen field. The introduction of credits and modulesbased on ECTS, and transition to third-generationstate standards will offer more scope forindividualizing education, though it is difficult topredict how universities will make use of these newopportunities.4. Education at most engineering universitiesis not organized in a way that makes students workalone and in groups, participating in their instructor’sprojects and in projects for real customers.Modernization of the education process along theselines is a crucial part of reform of the engineeringeducation system, including power engineering.5. A broad professional horizon is anessential part of the education of a future engineer.But at present the absolute majority of engineeringstudents are only acquainted with Russianachievements in their field, and the focus is ontheoretical knowledge, which does not always helpstudents to develop the practical skills they will needin the present market. The situation is exacerbated bythe fact that teachers themselves are oftentheoreticians, far removed from the practicalchallenges of the industry about which they teachand therefore barely able to navigate through theknowledge and competencies relevant to themodern economy. Until students know about thelatest trends in their chosen field, not only in Russiabut in the rest of the world, and until they start doingreal-life projects during their studies, no sector of theeconomy will be supplied with personnel who canmeet the challenges of innovative work.6. To date interaction between universitiesand employers has failed to make the educationprocess more relevant to the challenges of thecontemporary economy and to ensure universityemployercooperation in preparing students for futurejobs. Engineering universities must realise that theyare a key element for implementation of stateeconomic policy. Effective training of new specialistswill only be possible if universities create appropriateinformation systems as well as formal and informalinterfaces, through which their graduates can movemore easily into the job market.73