Authorities are discussing ways to transform education to meet the needs of the labor market

One of the elements of the new national project “Personnel”, which provides for the transformation of the education system to meet the needs of the Russian economy, will be the federal project “Professionality”, designed to modernize the secondary education system, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said on Friday. This project started in 2022 and should cover more than 1 thousand colleges by 2030. To encourage employers to invest in the refurbishment of such educational institutions, 28 regions are already ready to provide them with a tax deduction for such expenses – the RSPP considers this approach promising and proposes to expand its use.

The new national project “Personnel” will not only take into account the forecast demand of industries for workers, but will also lead to a qualitative change in the education infrastructure, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said on Friday at the plenary session “Labor Market: Job Seeker Opportunities and Employer Challenges” of the regional stage of the All-Russian Employment Fair . We are talking, in particular, about the opening of new engineering schools, the construction of campuses and the renovation of dormitories.

Let us recall that earlier the president instructed the government to formulate a forecast of the personnel needs of the Russian economy for five years in advance every year, starting from 2024 (for more details, see Kommersant of September 22, 2023). As Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education Dmitry Afanasyev noted at the meeting, taking into account the figures of this forecast, the government plans to change the target figures for admission to universities and secondary educational institutions. “It is through this mechanism that we will be able to provide the labor market with the necessary specialists,” noted the deputy minister.

To develop secondary vocational education, the government plans to extend the federal project “Professionalism,” which will become part of the national project. This program, launched in 2022, provides for the creation of educational and production centers, which represent the integration of colleges and enterprises in the real sector of the economy. Together with employers, educational institutions train personnel for priority sectors of the economy (see “Kommersant” dated May 30, 2023). This year, the Deputy Prime Minister said, the first graduates of this project will enter the labor market – 138 thousand people with an engineering education.

Minister of Education Mikhail Kravtsov said that in total, by 2030, as part of the national project, the government plans to modernize more than 1 thousand colleges and give access to them to more than 4 thousand employers. “We invite companies to invest in their refurbishment with us and are ready to offer a lower income tax rate in return. This has already been enshrined in law in 28 regions of the Russian Federation,” he noted. For example, in the Sverdlovsk region, enterprises can claim a tax deduction of up to 50% of the value of property donated to secondary vocational education organizations. The maximum value of property (amount of funds) that is taken into account for applying the deduction is 30 million rubles. in year. The head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), Alexander Shokhin, said that business sees great potential in the widespread use of such tax deductions. “28 regions is good, but I want more. This is what will allow companies to be encouraged to move more actively towards a long-term solution to the problem of personnel shortages by changing the education system,” said the President of the RSPP.

Anastasia Manuilova