Entrance exams to universities are over. Previously, it was believed that the lucky ones who were admitted would have five years of serene and happy student life. Times have changed: now most students from the very first years are concerned about getting a job. Some people start working by specialty already from the second or third year.

Who do modern employers prefer and what do graduates themselves strive for? Having analyzed this, one can clearly see what the quality of current Russian higher education is.

Expectations of applicants

Last year, the Begin group company, as part of the Examen project, surveyed Moscow applicants. They interviewed 182 people by telephone - high school students and school graduates. When asked what they wanted to do after graduation, 46 percent of applicants said that they were going to work in their specialty, another 12 percent wanted would like to work in their specialty, but are not sure that they will be able to do this. 33 percent intend to study a specialty that interests them at a university, and decide on future employment later. And only 9 percent have not yet thought about who and where they will work. It also turned out that most first-year students are going to find a part-time job in the 1st or 2nd year, and start working seriously in the 4th or 5th year. Only 7 percent plan to look for work only after graduation.

Rough reality

What actually happens after five years of study? More than a million young professionals, university graduates from 2007, are applying for available vacancies this year. The independent rating agency "ReitOR" has just conducted its research, the results of which are interesting to analyze.

A survey of more than 1,600 respondents from among university graduates in 2007 in various regions of Russia showed that only 23 percent of respondents will definitely work in their specialty (this is two times less than what applicants wanted), 3 percent will definitely not work in their specialty, and 18 percent said that, most likely, they would not work in the specialty they received. That is, it turns out that the efficiency of our universities is very small.

Interestingly, the study was conducted in the most applied industries and areas of university training: mechanical engineering, service and tourism, agro-industrial complex and food industry, construction, geology, mining and exploration, economics and management, electronics, telecommunications and information technology.

At the same time, it turned out that in recent years more and more students are combining university studies with work (52 percent of surveyed graduates), but their work during their studies is most often of the nature of additional work and is not related to the specialty they are receiving. Only 40 percent of students with work experience confirmed that the work was related to the specialty they studied at the university.

By the end of university we were able to decide on our future place of work about a quarter graduates of 2007 (27.5 percent have already chosen a company for future work). And 72.5 percent of young people start looking for work only after receiving a diploma.

Graduate Choice

What are the main criteria for a young specialist to choose a place of future work? First of all, career prospects, then the salary level, and then the opportunity for self-realization. Proximity to home, a social package, and relationships in a team are of much less concern to young people. In eighth place is the prestige of the place of work, in tenth is the fact that the enterprise is developing rapidly, in twelfth is proximity to home. And only on the thirteenth is the fact that the young specialist will work in a friendly team.

As for the real salary level of a young specialist, the starting salary on average ranges from $300 to $700 (we are talking about Moscow). At the same time, in all industries (except mechanical engineering) there are many enterprises where the average salary of graduates exceeds $700. Most of them are in the field of management, IT and telecommunications.

Choosing an employer

What guides an employer when making a decision to hire a young specialist? It turned out that the main thing is: personal impression from the applicant, his experience in business communication(educational practice, internship at the workplace), and only then - availability of specialized education. Despite the fact that employers do not say that the reputation of a university is of decisive importance, in practice, sometimes graduates unknown universities are not even considered as applicants. In addition, the following are important for employers (in descending order): availability of recommendations from the university, reputation of the educational institution which the graduate graduated from, level of graduate demands(position, salary, working hours, etc.), GPA; requests for patronage from relatives, friends, acquaintances.

Last year, the ReitOR agency, with the support of the Association of Personnel Selection Consultants, conducted a study, “The Career of a Young Specialist in Moscow.” It was attended by representatives of 150 Russian companies operating in five industries: gas and petrochemicals, mechanical engineering, IT and telecommunications, energy, management and economics

Employers were asked the question: “Which Moscow universities did you prefer to hire graduates for permanent work in the last two or three years?”

And it turned out that:

• mechanical engineers prefer graduates of MSTU. Bauman, MAI, MPEI, MATI (Russian State Technological University named after K.E. Tsiolkovsky), Moscow State Technical University "MAMI", MIPT, Stankin;
• energy We are happy to hire graduates from Moscow Power Engineering Institute and Moscow State Technical University. Bauman, MAI, Moscow State University. Lomonosov, MIPT, Russian State University of Oil and Gas named after. Gubkina, MEPhI;
• employers in the field "gas and petrochemicals" prefer graduates of the Russian State University of Oil and Gas named after. Gubkin, Moscow State University. Lomonosov, Russian Chemical-Technological University named after. Mendeleev, MSTU named after. Bauman, Moscow Power Engineering Institute, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
• graduates economic specialties and management They prefer to hire after graduating from Moscow State University. Lomonosov, MSTU im. Bauman, REA named after. Plekhanov, MGIMO, State University of Management, Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation, Moscow Aviation Institute, Higher School of Economics, Moscow Power Engineering Institute, Academy of National Economy under the Government of the Russian Federation;
• employers in the field " IT and telecommunications" Mostly they called Baumanka, Moscow State University. Lomonosov, MEPhI, Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics, MIPT, MAI, Moscow State Institute of Radio Engineering, Electronics and Automation, MPEI.

To summarize, we can say: employers mainly name well-known brands that have been leading in surveys over recent years. In industries such as mechanical engineering, energy, gas and petrochemicals, industry-specific universities are considered the most attractive (usually no more than three are named). In industries such as management and economics, IT and telecommunications, employers are not limited to the top three brands and industry universities. And one more thing: they single out graduates of technical universities as the most attractive for economic and management professions.

How to find each other

Previously, in the era of developed socialism, everything was simple: graduates worked either by distribution, or found a place through relatives and friends of their parents (through connections, that is). The results of today's survey showed that an employer and a university graduate most often find each other by posting advertisements about available vacancies in the media, the Internet, and only then the old-fashioned way (using informal connections - through acquaintances, relatives and friends).

What qualities do employers value in young professionals?

Based on what qualities are valued in young specialists at enterprises today, one can judge what is missing in modern Russian universities. And they appreciate learning ability, adaptability, activity, ambition, communication skills, mobility, perseverance, technological training, knowledge of computers and foreign languages.

It is easy to see that “trainability” comes first for the employer. This means that our universities do not produce specialists of the required quality. That is why, despite the shortage of qualified workers, not every employer is ready to hire a university graduate. More than 70 percent of employers admitted that young specialists require additional training.

In business and industry, it takes from several months to two years for a young specialist to adapt. And not every enterprise is ready to spend money and time on such additional training.

What qualities do university graduates lack?

Based on the results of surveys of employers, one can judge: additional training of young specialists is necessary due to a general lack of knowledge in general and special knowledge in particular; lack of practical skills, isolation of knowledge from production, lack of communication skills, inability to use information.

I would like to ask: what qualities do our graduates actually have?

Employers do not trust universities. Fewer and fewer businesses are cooperating with them; They do not allocate funds for training specialists and do not organize internships. Employers prefer to send their employees for training to other enterprises or train them themselves. 290 out of a thousand surveyed enterprises already have own educational institutions: retraining courses, training centers, vocational schools, colleges and universities.

For example, back in 2005, the costs of Russian enterprises for retraining and additional training of their employees amounted to about 400 billion rubles. At the same time, the order of enterprises for training specialists in educational institutions turned out to be small - only 17 billion.

Perhaps for this reason, university graduates, having barely received a diploma, immediately think about getting a second higher education (despite the fact that it can only be obtained for money). They do this not for pleasure (like many of their Western peers), but out of necessity. Apparently, they understand that they are not ready for work.

P.S. The conclusion is not comforting: for the most part, universities, even if they train specialists in applied specialties, continue to provide some kind of abstract (even good) education. Education divorced from the needs of real life. Maybe this is why graduates cannot immediately start working in their specialty, and our life is becoming more and more “beautiful” only in words. And they say about us: if you are so smart, then why are you so poor?

This summer, a million university graduates, having defended their diplomas, entered the labor market. How will the domestic economy accept them? Surveys show that finding a job for a university graduate is a headache for the family, and in important matters one has to rely not on a diploma, but mainly on connections and acquaintances. Official statistics confirm that most young professionals have difficulty finding work. According to the Ministry of Education, for example, every fourth university graduate is not employed, and those who are lucky enough to find a job, the authorities are trying to push them into freelancing in order to avoid paying taxes and pension contributions. But that’s not all: departmental reporting does not include those who completed training on a paid basis. This means that there are actually even more unemployed young specialists, and with all the talk about the shortage of personnel, the native economy simply does not need them. "Ogonyok" tried to figure out the problem.

In 2016, Rosstat conducted a sample survey of the employment of graduates of educational organizations. Here are his calculations: 139.6 thousand young people aged 20-24 years (that is, those who have just graduated from universities) are unemployed. And it turns out that unemployment among university graduates in 2015 is 5 times higher than in the country as a whole (5 percent). There is one more figure: among graduates aged 25 to 29 years (that is, previous graduates), Rosstat counted 152.1 thousand unemployed. The problem, therefore, is not only with the “fresh influx”, but also with the fact that before it, two graduation “waves” give a total of 291.7 thousand young people with diplomas and without work.

Meanwhile, the observation, as Rosstat points out, is “selective.” Should this data be trusted? Experts say: it’s worth it because they correlate with others.

This can be recognized as one of the paradoxes of the current situation: graduates who studied in paid places find themselves at the most disadvantageous position. For these students, parents have been paying universities a lot of money for years (up to 500 thousand rubles a year), but no one is interested in their fate, they are not taken into account anywhere, and both universities and the ministry forget about them as soon as they sign their diplomas. Although the high salaries of teachers are precisely from additional income from students “on a contractual basis”, and universities should bear them on their hands: payers give money no less than the budget...

“The conflict between graduates and employers is growing in the Russian labor market,” says Elena Avraamova, head of the social development research laboratory at the Institute of Social Analysis and Forecasting of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. “Employers significantly underestimate wages during the first employment. Therefore, there is a high turnover among young people; few people stay in one place for three years or more. In a crisis, employers immediately offer young people informal employment, I would say, they simply push them into freelancing, on fixed-term contracts, or even without a contract at all, paying for part-time work in cash, without a social package, without insurance and pension contributions.

In fact, many guys begin their professional lives under obviously worse conditions, outside the framework of normal labor relations. Surveys show that finding employment for a young specialist is a big problem for families. And the main thing in finding a job is the necessary connections and acquaintances. Elena Avraamova confirms: “Today in Russia, the most important factor when finding a first job is the applicant’s useful connections. Yes, a diploma is important, but in the first place is acquaintance. And not only when applying for “warm” places - for any: the employer does not like to hire a young specialist, unless he is recommended by someone he knows.”

Irina Abankina, director of the Institute for Educational Development at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, says that in our labor market there are, in fact, “closed sectors that are extremely difficult for random people to get into.” First of all, medicine: as a rule, one of the parents (or a relative from the older generation) of a medical university graduate worked in this field. Next - architecture, creative professions: artists, performers, musicians. The oil and gas sector is very specific. For example, Gubkin University can boast of an 80 percent employment rate for graduates, but if you don’t take into account shift workers, then “strangers don’t go there.” A similar situation is beginning to emerge in the construction and metalworking industries.

The state of our labor market, says Irina Abankina, is alarming. It is developing completely differently from the models developed in developed economies. There, the cost of labor is determined by the level of education, and not just the experience of the worker. There, graduates with high grades receive the best offers from employers. There, the competitiveness of personnel depends on constant professional development and on the employee’s ability to adapt to new requirements.

We don’t have any of this - our economy does not require this type of worker. Although the principle “the best students choose the best places” was once in effect - in the Soviet graduate distribution system: excellent students were the first to appear on the distribution committee. But the old system was abolished, and in the new one we have what we have.

Nikolai M. graduated from the Physics Department of Moscow State University in 2015 with a prestigious modern specialty - "mathematical modeling and computer science" with a high average score. I rested for two months, then started getting a job. “I wanted to do programming,” says Nikolai, “and I was looking for an interesting job. Well, so that the salary would be 55-60 thousand rubles.” For such a specialty this is the average salary. Kolya is a Muscovite. Three months of interviews did not yield results: there is a great demand for IT specialists, but employers need work experience, not a prestigious diploma with good grades; as a rule, they do not pay attention to them. It is unknown how much longer I would have suffered, but I was lucky: my mother’s acquaintance offered me a job in his company with a profile in Internet network programming. True, after a year and a half I had to change jobs.

Aleksey K., a 2015 graduate of the history department of Moscow State University, was less fortunate: he says that ten percent of his graduates were able to find work in their specialty (that is, historical science), while the rest did as best they could. Some people make money by tutoring, others have become realtors, and there are girls who have gone into the modeling business. Alexey himself, a Muscovite, was hired by his relatives to work on television in a large regional center. And he considers it luck...

According to the European Statistical Agency (Eurostat), in 2016 in the European Union, the employment rate of young people aged 20-34 within three years of receiving higher education was 80.8%. Moreover, male graduates find employment easier - among them the employment rate is 83.3%, while among women it is 78.8%. The highest proportion of employed graduates in the EU was recorded in Malta (96%), Germany (92.6%) and the Netherlands (92.3%), the lowest in Greece (53.6%), Italy (57.7). %) and Spain (70.7%).

According to Eurostat, in May 2017 there were 19.1 million unemployed in 28 EU countries (2.1 million less than in May 2016). Among EU residents under 25 years of age, there were 3.8 million people (585 thousand less than a year earlier). The lowest proportion of unemployed youth is recorded in Germany (6.7%), the Netherlands (9%) and the Czech Republic (9.2%), while the highest is in Greece (45.5%, data for April), Spain (38.6%) and Italy (37%). For comparison, according to the OECD, in Japan in 2016 the share of unemployed among residents under 25 years of age was 5.2%, in the USA - 10.4%, in Australia - 12.7%, in Canada - 13.1%.

The most unfavorable regions for youth employment in 2016 were the Middle East and North Africa. There, according to the World Bank, unemployment among citizens 15-24 years old averaged 29.7%. In the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean there was an average of 16.9% of unemployed young people, in Southeast Asia - 10.5%. Among the record-breaking countries in which more than half of young people are unemployed are Bosnia and Herzegovina (67.6%), Swaziland (52.8%), South Africa (52.3%), French Polynesia (50.8%) and Oman (50.8%).

The education system does not meet the demands of the labor market either in terms of the number of graduates or the quality of their training, note the authors of the review on the Eurasianet portal. The material provides data from various analytical centers in the country and several ISSEK studies. In particular, the results of the Monitoring of the Economics of Education of the National Research University Higher School of Economics and the conclusions of the report “Russian Youth: Education and Science” are presented.

About a third of graduates work outside their specialty, and every fourth graduate works in a job that does not require higher education. On the one hand, graduates face various difficulties when finding a job, on the other hand, 91% of employers are dissatisfied with their skills.

The reasons, according to experts, are that the education system does not meet the demands of the labor market - neither in the number of graduates, nor in the quality of their training. Lawyers and economists are 10 times more than the market needs, while there are not enough specialists in the fields of information technology, science and healthcare. Educational institutions have outdated equipment, teachers cannot concentrate only on their work due to low salaries, and students themselves work during their studies not to gain skills, but to earn money.

According to the latest complete data from Rosstat (research is carried out every five years), 10.7 million people received a diploma in 2010-2015. Of these, 5.5 million graduates (out of 7.3 million looking for work) faced difficulties in finding employment, mainly due to lack of experience (3.8 million), low wages (2.3 million), due to lack of vacancies (1.7 million) and due to the difficulty of finding work in their specialty (1.2 million). As a result, in the first year after graduation, 5.9 million people out of 7.3 million who were looking for work were employed, therefore, 1.4 million remained unemployed during this period.

Graduates of both higher and secondary educational institutions experience problems with employment. According to the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, of those who received a diploma in 2014, 43% of secondary school graduates and 23% of university graduates were unemployed during the year. For graduates of 2015, data is available only for universities: 25% of people were unable to find a job during the year.

Lack of professional skills

According to the Higher School of Economics (HSE), between 2005 and 2015, employers’ interest in graduates decreased. For example, in construction, the share of enterprises hiring graduates decreased from 70% in 2005 to 43% in 2015, in trade - from 53% to 38%, in industry - from 73% to 62%. Managers of Russian companies are not satisfied with the self-organization skills of graduates, their ability to analyze and solve problems in non-standard situations, and they rate their professional training at 3.5-3.7 points out of five.

According to VTsIOM, 91% of employers report a lack of practical skills among university graduates; according to The Boston Consulting Group, 60% of employers report a lack of practical skills among graduates of secondary professional organizations.

BCG finds that students' skills acquisition is hampered by the fact that the education system does not listen to business. This is also facilitated by the poverty of the material and technical base of educational institutions.

“Most of the machine park in Russia is analog equipment. But the analog type was typical until the 1980s, now the realities are completely different,” says Robert Urazov, General Director of the WorldSkills Russia union. The lack of digital tools also hinders the quality training of students.

Work experience in the profession could compensate for the lack of practical skills. However, during their studies, the majority of students in secondary educational institutions (61.8%) work outside their specialty. More than half of students at all types of educational institutions () work solely to meet financial needs. Only 21.5% of students from secondary professional organizations and 28% of university students seek experience that employers could subsequently evaluate.

Teaching difficulties

There are also questions about the level of teaching. For example, according to HSE data for 2015, only 3.9% of teachers in secondary educational institutions use scientific literature in a foreign language in teaching students, and 7% of teachers use educational literature. This is due to the low level of foreign language proficiency of both teachers and students.

The reluctance of teachers to improve their level is largely explained by their low salaries and high teaching load. Despite the state’s promises to increase the average salary of teachers, its level in 2017 was 76% of the level in manufacturing industries, and this is only 1% more than in 2011.

“University teachers and school teachers receive beggarly, humiliating salaries, unworthy of highly educated people... The salary of a provincial professor is... less than 500 euros... This turns Russian teachers into lumpen-proletarians of mental labor, forced to constantly look for additional sources of livelihood, which has a deplorable effect on both the quality of their work and their health,” says an open letter to the Minister of Education of the Russian Federation (April 2017), authored by Vera Afanasyeva, a professor at Saratov State University.

Failure to meet employer expectations

According to the managing partner of the consulting company Odgers Berndtson, Roman Tyshkovsky, the demand of employers does not correspond to the supply of universities either in the number of specialists or in the quality of their training. According to Rosobrnadzor, lawyers and economists are graduating 10 times more than the required number. And according to the Central Bank, a shortage of qualified personnel is observed in healthcare, education, science, technology and information technology.

Part of the mismatch of the labor force with the demands of the labor market may be caused by the high prevalence of work outside of one’s specialty. According to various data, from 60% to 73% of the economically active population work outside their specialty.

Another feature of the Russian labor market is that every fourth university graduate performs work that does not require higher education. For example, 14% of Russian salespeople and security guards have such education. This is explained by the fact that many employers are looking for employees with higher education not because it is required in the job.

“The employer believes that higher education gives the employee a certain outlook, in addition, people with higher education are more responsible and have better communication skills,” says Tatyana Klyachko, director of the Center for Economics of Continuing Education at the Academy of National Economy and Civil Service.

Against the backdrop of purely Russian problems, in the rest of the world, according to Klyachko, the demand for either very highly qualified specialists or simply responsible performers is growing. This trend is observed against the backdrop of the development of informatization and the use of technology.

“If the existing [characterized by a lack of demand for knowledge] structure of the labor market is maintained for another 7-10 years, Russia’s lag behind the leading countries of the world economy risks becoming irreducible,” said senior partner and managing director, chairman of BCG in Russia Vladislav Butenko, commenting on the results the study “Russia 2025: from personnel to talent”, conducted by his company together with Sberbank, WorldSkills Russia and Global Education Futures. “Cheaper technologies and increased volatility make a “cliff” scenario very likely, i.e. a fairly sharp deterioration in the economic situation” if qualitative changes do not occur in the coming years.

This means that the majority of children, as in previous years, plan to enroll in lawyers, economists and managers - these faculties require this very subject. But in the end, less than half of those who graduate work in their specialty. Where are the others going? To the sellers! Because employers are looking first of all for sales managers, then for qualified workers and engineers. The latter are in great short supply on the market. Especially design engineers and technologists. It is no coincidence that many enterprises select their engineering personnel from senior students at universities and colleges. To ensure that your dreams do not diverge from reality, it is worth taking a closer look at the ranking of the most popular specialties (see infographics).

“According to our research, when selecting young specialists, HR managers pay attention primarily to the personal and business qualities of the applicant,” says Daria Shurygina, leading analyst at the recruiting portal Superjob.ru, - as well as having at least minimal experience (45%). The level and quality of education is in third place (34%). However, the university still matters, since, other things being equal, preference will be given to a candidate with a diploma from a prestigious university. And when finding a first job, a diploma often plays a decisive role.”

Infographics: AiF

The cult of success and money

Igor Beloborodov, sociologist, scientific director of the Independent Institute of Family and Demography:

Modern teenagers will have a more difficult time than their peers even a few years ago, since the world has become much more complex and unstable during this time. They have found themselves in an era of mass migration, which means that many of their classmates will turn out to be people of a completely different mentality and culture. It will be more difficult for them to find a common language with others, make friends, love, and create families. Indeed, during ethnic border wars, even accomplished adults sometimes cannot understand where the truth is and where the lie is. What can we say about fragile young minds...

Already now, teenagers are developing a lack of moral standards and taboos: in life, they are gradually instilled in them, there is only a place for expediency, cynicism and money. Look at any advertisement on TV - everywhere there is a cult of success, sex and beauty. There is no place for work, respect for others, or the idea of ​​​​helping the weak and defenseless.

But there are also advantages. Thanks to the development of information technology, education is becoming more accessible. This increases the chances of children, including those from low-income families, and gives them a good start for a successful life.

Life as an experiment

Pyotr Dmitrievsky, psychologist at the Perekrestok center for working with teenagers at Moscow State University of Psychology and Education:

The main skill that needs to be instilled in today's children is the ability to adapt. Because it is impossible to predict which profession will be relevant in 5 years! The most valuable life skill is to adapt to an uncertain situation. This is precisely what is important to teach a student entering adulthood. To do this, you need to equip the teenager with three weapons: hope, the ability to communicate and the courage to try. Talk about your situations of confusion and what unexpected solutions turned out to be useful. Then there is a higher probability that, when faced with a surprise, a recent student will not fall into despair, but will perceive it as a difficult but interesting task. We need to develop communication skills. In incomprehensible and unpleasant situations, it is important not to fall into isolation and depression, but to be able to organize support for yourself. Finally, we must learn to treat life as an experiment. If a graduate (as well as his parent) does not see a disaster behind every wrong step, he will continue to go through options even in a situation of uncertainty and will eventually find the right way out.

About a third of graduates work outside their specialty, and every fourth graduate works in a job that does not require higher education. On the one hand, graduates face various difficulties when finding a job, on the other hand, 91% of employers are dissatisfied with their skills.

The reasons, according to experts, are that the education system does not meet the demands of the labor market - neither in the number of graduates nor in the quality of their training. Lawyers and economists are 10 times more than the market needs, while there are not enough specialists in the fields of information technology, science and healthcare. Educational institutions have outdated equipment, teachers cannot concentrate only on their work due to low salaries, and students themselves work during their studies not to gain skills, but to earn money.

According to the latest complete data from Rosstat (research is carried out every five years), 10.7 million people received a diploma in 2010-2015. Of these, 5.5 million graduates (out of 7.3 million looking for work) faced difficulties in finding employment, mainly due to lack of experience (3.8 million), low wages (2.3 million), due to lack of vacancies (1.7 million) and due to the difficulty of finding work in their specialty (1.2 million). As a result, in the first year after graduation, 5.9 million people out of 7.3 million who were looking for work were employed, therefore, 1.4 million remained unemployed during this period.

Graduates of both higher and secondary educational institutions experience problems with employment. According to the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, of those who received a diploma in 2014, 43% of secondary school graduates and 23% of university graduates were unemployed during the year. For graduates of 2015, data is available only for universities: 25% of people were unable to find a job during the year.

Lack of professional skills

According to the Higher School of Economics (HSE), between 2005 and 2015, employers’ interest in graduates decreased. For example, in construction, the share of enterprises hiring graduates decreased from 70% in 2005 to 43% in 2015, in trade - from 53% to 38%, in industry - from 73% to 62%. Managers of Russian companies are not satisfied with the self-organization skills of graduates, their ability to analyze and solve problems in non-standard situations, and they rate their professional training at 3.5-3.7 points out of five.

Context

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InoSMI 03/15/2018

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Project Syndicate 05/22/2016

Inclusive Ukrainian education

Project Syndicate 05.10.2017

What's behind the British education brand?

InoSMI 03/28/2016
According to VTsIOM, 91% of employers report a lack of practical skills among university graduates; according to The Boston Consulting Group, 60% of employers report a lack of practical skills among graduates of secondary professional organizations.

BCG finds that students' skills acquisition is hampered by the fact that the education system does not listen to business. This is also facilitated by the poverty of the material and technical base of educational institutions.

“Most of the machine park in Russia is analog equipment. But the analogue type was typical until the 1980s; now the realities are completely different,” says Robert Urazov, CEO of the WorldSkills Russia union. The lack of digital tools also hinders the quality training of students.

Work experience in the profession could compensate for the lack of practical skills. However, during their studies, the majority of students in secondary educational institutions (61.8%) work outside their specialty. More than half of students at all types of educational institutions (54%) work solely to meet financial needs. Only 21.5% of students from secondary professional organizations and 28% of university students seek experience that employers could subsequently evaluate.

Teaching difficulties

There are also questions about the level of teaching. For example, according to HSE data for 2015, only 3.9% of teachers in secondary educational institutions use scientific literature in a foreign language in teaching students, and 7% of teachers use educational literature. This is due to the low level of foreign language proficiency of both teachers and students.

The reluctance of teachers to improve their level is largely explained by their low salaries and high teaching load. Despite the state’s promises to increase the average salary of teachers, its level in 2017 was 76% of the level in manufacturing industries, and this is only 1% more than in 2011.

“University teachers and school teachers receive beggarly, humiliating salaries, unworthy of highly educated people... The salary of a provincial professor is... less than 500 euros... This turns Russian teachers into lumpen-proletarians of mental labor, forced to constantly look for additional sources of livelihood, which has a deplorable effect on the quality of their labor, and on their health,” says an open letter to the Minister of Education of the Russian Federation (April 2017), authored by Vera Afanasyeva, a professor at Saratov State University.

Failure to meet employer expectations

According to the managing partner of the consulting company Odgers Berndtson, Roman Tyshkovsky, the demand of employers does not correspond to the supply of universities either in the number of specialists or in the quality of their training. According to Rosobrnadzor, lawyers and economists are graduating 10 times more than the required number. And according to the Central Bank, a shortage of qualified personnel is observed in healthcare, education, science, technology and information technology.

Part of the mismatch of the labor force with the demands of the labor market may be caused by the high prevalence of work outside of one’s specialty. According to various data, from 60% to 73% of the economically active population work outside their specialty.

Another feature of the Russian labor market is that every fourth university graduate does work that does not require higher education. For example, 14% of Russian salespeople and security guards have such education. This is explained by the fact that many employers are looking for employees with higher education not because it is required in the job.

“The employer believes that higher education gives the employee a certain outlook, in addition, people with higher education are more responsible and have better communication skills,” says Tatyana Klyachko, director of the Center for Economics of Continuing Education at the Academy of National Economy and Civil Service.

Against the backdrop of purely Russian problems, in the rest of the world, according to Klyachko, the demand for either very highly qualified specialists or simply responsible performers is growing. This trend is observed against the backdrop of the development of informatization and the use of technology.

“If the current structure of the labor market [characterized by a lack of demand for knowledge] is maintained for another 7-10 years, Russia’s lag behind the leading countries of the world economy risks becoming irreducible,” said senior partner and managing director, chairman of BCG in Russia Vladislav Butenko, commenting on the results the study “Russia 2025: from personnel to talent”, conducted by his company together with Sberbank, WorldSkills Russia and Global Education Futures. “Cheaper technologies and increased volatility make a “cliff” scenario very likely, i.e. a fairly sharp deterioration in the economic situation” if qualitative changes do not occur in the coming years.

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively from foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.