On 3 October Saratov University hosted the opening ceremony of the meeting of deans and chairs of departments of faculties of economics, members of the FEMA (Federal Educational and Methodological Association) Sections in Economics and Management and the Federal Network Methodological Centre aimed to improve student financial literacy.
The meeting was opened by SSU Rector, Professor Aleksei N. Chumachenko. He welcomed the colleagues and the forum members and marked its importance for the regional economy development. Aleksei Chumachenko spoke about considerable work done by the university to improve young specialist education, and it is also dedicated to the 110th anniversary celebration.
‘Norilsk Nickel Company and SSU have been implementing the IT-Support of Economic and Financial Company Departments Project. Besides, we have applied for the contest titled the Development and Implementation of Professional Development and Re-Training Courses for Working Population, Managers, and CDO-Manager Teams Considering Digital Economy Requirements. The contest is held by University 20.35. These are new trends, a new turn in the development of university education and research. It is important that we are supported by regional and federal authorities. Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin makes a great contribution to promotion and development of our university. This support is significant for us and for the region in general,’ noted the rector.
Then the forum participants were addressed by Vice-Governor, Chair of the Government of the Saratov Region Alexander M. Strelyukhin.
‘We are proud that our education is great, and we can proudly call our city a student city, a university city. We are proud that the team from the Saratov Region won the All-Russia Digital Breakthrough Contest in Kazan. Last week we represented our region at the Federation Council, where we spoke about our strong points and potential. We will continue developing one of the issues, namely specialist education for the regional economy and young manager preparation for the region. Surely, today during the meeting we will discuss this matter, and the meeting itself will become the next step to improve education quality.’
At the end of his speech, Vice-Governor invited his colleagues to take part in the Second Economic Forum, which will be organised in 10-11 October in Saratov.
Then the reports were delivered by representatives of Saratov University and guests at the Panel Discussion titled Economic Education: Global trends and Regional Peculiarities.
SSU Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs Igor G. Malinskii presented the report titled the SSU Academic Affairs Considering the Federal State Educational Standards 3++. The vice-rector told the audience about the results of changing the curriculum in accordance with the new standards.
Thus, the rector approved the road map, there were organised groups for each course who had to develop the concepts, the structure of curriculums, and the set of professional competences corresponding with the professional standards. The research and methodological councils of the faculties and institutes actively participated in it as well.
‘At the beginning of the year we met with the deans of faculties, the directors of institutes, and the chairs of departments and discussed that issue of restructuring the education, according to the new standards. Then there were conducted seminars with developers of object-oriented programming, where they learnt about the key changes in OOP structure and curriculums, new methods to develop teaching materials,’ marked the vice-rector.
According to him, the current bylaws were improved and new ones were developed aimed to standardise the main educational programmes. Also the university staff prepared the documents on curriculum and OOP development of pedagogy courses. As the Association of Classical Universities of Russia determined, there was organised the group responsible for developing a pedagogy module for non-pedagogy courses.
Dean of the SSU Faculty of Economics, Chair of the Department of Economics Theory and National Economy Elena V. Ogurtsova delivered a report on the economic education development in Saratov University.
‘The Faculty of Economics is one the youngest in our university. It was founded in 2006, but the economic education in SSU has a long history because the economic school was established here in June 1917 when the Department of Political Economics and Statistics was opened in the Faculty of Law.’
Elena Ogurtsova commented on the establishment history of the faculty, a whole pleiad of eminent researchers who have developed it, the affairs the faculty deal with it today, and its courses.
Moreover, she spoke about the development vectors of the faculty academic affairs and research paying the attention how the regional and federal projects and grants were implemented and sharing the results of the Young Research School held in the Chardym Camp, etc.
Another topic discussed at the meeting was the development of the regional labour market and higher education potential in the region. It was brought up by Head of the Office of Analysis, Prediction, and Monitoring of the Committee on Employment of the regional Ministry of Employment, Labour, and Migration Julia V. Ovinova.
She presented the annual results on labour force deficiency – in the region public health service specialists are highly demanded, the next category is insurance and advertising agents, the third position is taken by agricultural specialists, livestock experts, vets, and land development specialists, and the fourth demanded group of personnel is presented by teachers, methodology experts, and pre-school teachers.
However, nowadays the number of lawyers surpasses the number of working places.
To help youth in career guidance and popularise vocational and engineering professions the ministry annually organises massive career guidance projects, e.g. the Profession marathon, the Find Yourself Regional Career Guidance Arts Contest.
Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Saratov Region Olga N. Yakusheva paid the attention of the meeting members to the development strategy and regional economics priority projects.
The report titled the Development Trends of Economic Education was delivered by Head of the Office of Economics of the Saratov Region Division of the Volga-Vyatka Main Branch of the Bank of Russia Elena A. Ostrovskaya. She noted that the Bank of Russia is a high-tech megaregulator, therefore, qualified personnel is demanded in the Bank of Russia to develop financial technologies, improve the cybersecurity service, and form the national payment system. In this respect the speaker reminded about the long-term cooperation between SSU and the bank in terms of graduate employment and student internships.
Coordinator of Financial Literacy Programme Implementation in the Saratov Region, Chair of the Department of World Economy and Economics (Saratov Socio-Economic Institute of Plekhanov Russian University of Economics) Natalia V. Mityayeva devoted her speech to the regional peculiarities of the project titled the Promotion of Financial Literacy Improvement and Development of Financial Education in Russian Federation in the Region.
The regional representative of the Federal Network Methodological Centre (Lomonosov Moscow State University), Chair of the Department of Finance and Credit Olga S. Balash reported on the results of SSU staff re-training within the Development and Implementation of Course (Module) Curriculums on Financial Literacy for Students of Higher Education Institutions.
CEO of Argoros JSC Dmitrii Yu. Kondratskov and Principal of School № 95 with enhanced education Irina V. Parkhomenko presented the report titled the eduScrum Teaching Method as a Tool to Form Business and Economic Culture Competences.
Chief Development Officer of RIM Group of Companies LLC. Dmitrii V. Fedorishchev gave a speech on the graduate image, from employers’ point of view.
Head of the SSU Business Incubator Elena V. Korotkovskaya told the audience about new technologies and new approaches to form professional competences in SSU.
The forum members will meet on 4 October, too.
