On July 6, a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Galaxy-64 Saratov Regional Centre for Talented Children was held at Engineering Lyceum chaired by Governor of Saratov Region Roman Busargin. Saratov State University was represented by Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs Igor Malinskii.
Opening the meeting, Roman Busargin announced the agenda of the meeting, which included the following issues – recruiting schoolchildren and the educational peculiarities, the centre preparation to start working, as well as building the team. He reminded that the centre work should embrace three major areas – science, arts, and sports. The Governor noted that the meeting was attended by the rectors of Saratov universities and stressed the importance of cooperation between the centre and the higher school. According to the head of the region, teachers working with talented schoolchildren should direct them that after graduation from schools and universities they would be in demand in their region.
Deputy Prime Minister of Saratov Region – the Minister of Education of the region Mikhail Orlov reported whether the centre was ready for the opening. He noted that the establishment of the Galaxy-64 was a landmark event for the region. The minister spoke about the infrastructure of the centre, the expert council, the features of the recruitment of schoolchildren, and the development of professional curricula. ‘The goal of the Galaxy is to give every child the opportunity to develop their talent,’ the minister pointed out.
Mikhail Orlov stressed that the universities of the region were actively involved in developing the concept of the centre. He called the Young Managers School of Saratov Region a successful example of such joint work, which is supervised by Saratov State University, the Povolzhsky Institute of Management named after P.A. Stolypin, and Saratov State Technical University. Speaking about the cooperation with universities of Saratov Region, Mikhail Orlov noted the need to aggregate resources. It is planned to cooperate with the laboratories of partner universities and conduct seven specialised intensive shifts at the Galaxy.
Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs Igor Malinskii told the meeting members about the versatile work with talented children at SSU. The issues of talents for a classical university are both a direction of research, a master's degree course, and international scientific conferences. Since 2018, the Support Centre for Talented Children has been working at Saratov State University. Having a great of experience in this field, SSU specialists are ready to develop a professional development course on the issues of talents for the Galaxy-64 teachers.
For more than 20 years, the university, together with the Ministry of Education of Saratov Region, has been organising and conducting summer wellness shifts for talented children – the Constellation School. ‘The Constellation is the foundation that will help the Galaxy to take place. Moreover, both there and here the work is headed by Ella Zlobina, a graduate of our university and a teacher of one of our corporate departments. I would not like to lose the Constellation after receiving the Galaxy. We are all well aware that the summer camp shift sometimes influences young citizens and young researchers more than any other associations of schoolchildren,’ Igor Malinskii noted.
According to him, that part of the classes with the Galaxy schoolchildren could take place in the classrooms and research-to-laboratory centres of Saratov State University. ‘Even today, we could show the schoolchildren how our smart computer classrooms work, give them the opportunity to work in our engineering fab labs, show the treasures of the department of rare books and manuscripts of the scientific library’.
Another topic of Igor Malinskii’s speech was the involvement of students as mentors, tutors, and counsellors to work with schoolchildren in the Galaxy. A proposal was made to think over a special system of such work at the meetings of the Rectors’ Council of Saratov Region.
The proposals for the centre development were also made by Rector of the Saratov State Academy of Law Ekaterina Ilgova, Rector of the Vavilov University Dmitrii Solovyov, Rector of the Povolzhsky Institute of Management named after P.A. Stolypin Victor Cheplyaev, Vice-Rector for Research and International Affairs of Saratov State Conservatory Irina Polozova, Principal of Gymnasium No. 1 Irina Gainutdinova, and Principal of Music and Aesthetics Lyceum named after A.G. Schnittke Julia Yermakova.
