The issues of student qualifications, the quality of graduates' training by universities and colleges, business requirements for personnel qualifications were discussed today at the Technopark “Idea” as part of the online session “Independent Assessment in Education. Prospects and Barriers”. The event was attended by experts from different industries and regions of the country. Among them was the Deputy General Director of the National Agency for the Development of Qualifications Alla Faktorovich, the director of the Business Polymer Park “Kom-Plast” Sergey Tsybukov, the chief technologist of the Group of Companies “Mirriko” Roman Kamalov, the general director of the Interindustry Association of the Nanoindustry Olga Kryukova, representatives of the country’s business and universities. During the conference, questions were also accepted online.
One of the first topics was the interaction between educational institutions, qualification assessment centers and enterprises. According to Alla Faktorovich, the independent assessment of qualifications is a feedback from employers and an assessment of the level of preparedness of graduates. “This is not an assessment for the sake of evaluation, but a development tool, because the analysis of the results of professional exams allows us to look differently at the content of education and educational technologies. In fact, we should restructure the educational process in such a way that the results of training meet the expectations and requirements of employers”.
Faktorovich also explained that a team of the Ministry of Education became interested in the results of a pilot project in the secondary vocational education and now, including within the framework of the President’s instructions, a working group is being formed.
Sergey Tsybukov spoke about the tools for assessing qualifications in small companies. He presented the interim results of the replication of staffing support model (the formation of engineering companies), used to introduce advanced production technologies. He noted that a new end-to-end process cannot be prescribed without educational institutions. At the same time, a new business process requires short training programs in order to complete the qualifications that a specialist lacks. Within the first stage, 5 models were developed: 3 technological and 2 humanitarian. According to the expert, the difficulty was in retraining specialists involved in testing the model. However, over time, this aspect went away, replaced by surprise and excitement when getting new knowledge. “Now I am already scared to imagine that 3 years ago we did not study continuously. The success of the programs was simply colossal, because we train not just specialists, but successful people”, - said Sergei Tsybukov. He also explained that as a result, a decision was made on the specific blocks that are necessary to replicate the staffing model. At the same time, one must be able to work not only with ready-made technologies, but also interact with start-ups, introduce technologies, go into series and sell.
Yuri Shlyago, Head of the Examination Center of the Qualification Assessment Center in the nanoindustry of the Saint Petersburg State Technological Institute, spoke about the topical issues of integrating independent qualifications assessment in higher education institutions using the example of the St. Petersburg Institute. He explained that during 2019, students of the university passed 45 professional exams and that the experience gained made it possible to form a certain view of the main elements of the widespread introduction of procedures for independent assessment of qualifications in the state final certification of universities and to identify their problems. Thus, the most pressing issues were divided into 3 main groups: issues of regulatory support, organizational, methodological and financial support.
“Unconditionally, it is necessary to adjust the regulatory framework at the federal level, reflecting the specifics of the proposed innovations. In particular, if we take the documents of the Ministry of Education and Science, then this is the Federal State Educational Standard and the procedure for conducting the State final attestation on educational programs of higher education,”, - said the expert.
Speaking about organizational and methodological issues, Yuri Shlyago highlighted 6 main points. For example, universities will need to make a comparison of the evaluation funds with the control and evaluation tools according to the specialized professional standard for each educational program. Then, if necessary, adapt them. The second aspect is the development of a procedure for familiarizing students with the control and evaluation tools used in the course of professional exams. The third point, it is necessary to decide on what qualifications, in which Qualification Assessment Centers, in which Councils for Professional Qualifications should take professional exams within the framework of the State final attestation and systematize this information in the form of a register. Fourth, it is necessary to agree on the timing of the traditional forms of state examinations and the professional exams integrated into them, as well as the timing of the announcement of results. Fifthly, it is important to combine the terminology of state examinations and independent assessment of qualifications. Sixth, the issues of regulating the introduction of remote technologies into the state final certification and independent qualification assessment procedure need to be addressed.
Noting the specifics of the issues of financial support, Yuri Shlyago explained that when integrating the state final certification and independent qualification assessment the financial burden on tuition-free students should be excluded. Decisions of the legislative authority are also needed on the inclusion of the costs of professional exams in the cost estimates of budgetary universities, and for cases when students take professional exams at the examination centers of another university - to determine the procedure for settlements between universities or between universities and Qualification Assessment Centers, in which these centers operate.
At the end of his speech, Yuri Shlyago suggested that relevant ministries, the National Agency for the Development of Qualifications, professional qualifications council and universities organize operational joint work on the preparation of methodological recommendations explaining the procedure for integrating the state final certification and independent qualification assessment and develop specific proposals for making the necessary changes to the relevant federal regulatory legal acts to implement instructions of the President of the country to conduct an external assessment of the quality of training students in universities at the federal level.
Irina Zimina shared her own opinion on qualifications assessment by universities, who noted that education and qualifications are links in one chain: “Now, as a rule, institutions prepare students themselves and check the level of knowledge themselves. The independent assessment gives an outside view on the quality of training. This is a real assessment of our work”.
She also said that she has been participating in a pilot project together with the students for the second year and now the results of qualifications assessment do not affect the results of the final certification: “In the first year, our students did not receive any certificates at the end of the exam. This year the guys were given certificates. I can say that the results of the assessment did not affect the final qualifying work in any way, since the commission did not know about the results of students in professional exams. How it will be in the future is difficult to say. But now it is like this: the guys, who successfully passed the professional exam, received certificates and were included in the all-Russian register of those who passed the assessment. There are students who did not pass the professional exams, but received a diploma of education, as they successfully passed the exams”.
The opinion of the business community was expressed by Roman Kamalov, stating that “every employer wants to find the most qualified specialist”. When asked how the quality of graduates' training now meets the expectations of employers, he noted that universities produce sufficiently trained specialists: “But there are a number of issues that, in particular, are reflected in the practical part and the student is not ready for them. There is a certain gap in production issues. Perhaps a student shouldn’t know them’, - he explained, noting that he himself conducted an assessment of students’ qualifications as an expert and noted that “a number of questions are not really for students, but more for production workers”.
Olga Kryukova also emphasized that in the framework of assessing the qualifications of students, in particular, in the field of nanoindustry, high standards are really applied to them: “We work in an emerging market, in the high-tech market and we are constantly changing and transforming the demand for personnel, the demand with which we go towards the higher education system. In addition, we work with engineering personnel and we have a very high level of qualifications. If you take a cross-section of our qualifications, and more than 200 of them have now been developed then most of them are at 6th and 7th levels, and there are 8th level qualifications, which, as a rule, require professional experience”. The expert explained that work will still be carried out in this direction. For example, one solution is to develop entrance qualifications for students.
Also during the meeting, the Executive Director of the Association for the Development of Qualifications Marat Kadyrov proposed to study the issue of introducing project practices, when a student would come to an enterprise to solve specific problems.
In turn, Roman Kamalov said that before developing this topic, we need specifics, including closer interaction between a teacher, who should come to the company and find common ground. Kamalov emphasized that he had never seen anything like this in his practice, and that usually a student joins in already existing work processes.
Head of the Center for Educational, Expert and Quality Management Liliya Razyapova said that independent quality assessment is a new generation of standards, adding, among other things, the attractiveness and prestige of the university itself, since the quality of students’ skills is directly confirmed by professionals. She noted that new standards appear every day, but there are still areas where a lot of work remains to be done. Among them are technological machinery and automation of production processes.
Secretary of the Council for Professional Qualifications in the field of nanoindustry Sergey Ionov said that they are closely contacting the country’s universities with a proposal to implement a number of systems: “Moreover, we even have funds within the framework of the program, and are ready to pay for the work of experts so that the team can work out the format and procedure for conducting the qualification assessment procedure. In our opinion, professional public accreditation is a dialogue between a university and an enterprise. Here we must take into account the wishes of both employers and universities. Every year, based on the results of public accreditation, we change the provisions based on modern realities: somewhere we correct the criteria, somewhere the requirements”.
At the same time, he stressed that universities are reluctant to assess qualifications and voiced the probable reasons for such inertia, in particular, according to him, the reasons may be in a poor material and technical base or in weak interaction with employers.
It should be noted that during the online session, participants from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Voronezh and other cities of the country shared their experience. The full version of the online session can be viewed here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXFjJbKWdLI
