Plans for the backend – Newspaper Kommersant No. 68 (7513) dated 04/19/2023

Russian schoolchildren most often choose IT professions for their future careers, according to a survey of the federal career guidance project “Ticket to the Future”. They are least interested in the spheres of agriculture and natural sciences. The state needs to “balance the needs of the market and the desires of future professionals,” the authors of the study believe.

A study of the career preferences of schoolchildren was conducted by the IT company Profilum and the federal career guidance project Ticket to the Future (supervised by the Igor Yesin Foundation for Humanitarian Projects; the foundation is known for the network of exhibition venues Russia is My History). The authors of the study interviewed several groups of schoolchildren. First, they asked 20,000 students to rate their confidence in choosing a profession. Despite the difference in age, the answers were similar. The option “There is complete certainty: I clearly know who I want to become and what education to get” was chosen by 24% of students in grades 6–7, 26% in grades 8–9 and 29% among grades 10–11. “Rather, there is certainty,” answered 27% of elementary school students, 30% in high school and 32% in high school. The other extreme – the option “There is no certainty: I don’t know at all where I want to go and who I want to be next” – was chosen by 10%, 10% and 8%, respectively. The authors of the study state that by the end of the 11th grade, a total of 61% of schoolchildren represent their future. “But there is still a very high percentage of children who doubt or have no confidence in the choice,” the study concludes. “It is worth not only continuing to introduce special career guidance methods, but also providing a differentiated approach to students with varying degrees of professional self-determination.”

For the second survey, the researchers asked 615.3 thousand students in grades 6-11 to answer how it would be more convenient for them to learn about various professions. In the first place (32%) was the option “Immersion in the profession”: master classes, excursions and internships at enterprises. 25% chose the “Other people’s experience” answer group – videos from bloggers and posts on social networks. In third place (24%) were circles, courses and thematic shifts in children’s camps.

Finally, the authors of the survey asked 196,500 students in grades 6-11 to talk about their dream profession. “In all age categories, IT and social sciences turned out to be the most popular: economics, management, jurisprudence, psychology, sociology, media, as well as service and tourism,” the study says. “At the same time, age-specific features are clearly distinguished. In grades 6–7, students more often choose professions related to culture and art. In grades 8-11, students gravitate more towards engineering, the creation of new technologies and technical sciences.”

The authors name the 15 most popular professions among high school students out of more than 400 mentioned (here in the study, the percentage of respondents is not indicated). The profession of a backend developer gained the most votes among the surveyed teenagers. In second place is a graphic designer, in third is a programmer. They are followed by an artist, a data scientist, a chef, an actor/actress, a fashion designer, and an athlete. The top ten is closed by a DevOps engineer, followed by a manicurist, a psychologist, an architect, a beautician, and a frontend developer. The study notes that the areas of agriculture and natural sciences have become outsiders – they “require additional popularization and attract the attention of children.”

Here, the authors also cite the results of a twenty-year-old Ministry of Labor survey: in 2003, 34% of high school students chose the banking and commercial sector, 15% planned to open their own business, and only 8% wanted to work in industry. It should be noted, according to the Ministry of Education and Science, in 2022, the most popular professions among applicants in Moscow and St. Petersburg were “information systems and technologies”, “economics”, “management”, “informatics and computer technology”, as well as “jurisprudence”.

The fourth survey – what level of education is considered sufficient – was completed by 24,000 students in grades 6-11. Some of them chose the answer “undecided”. But among high school students, 60% chose options with different levels of higher education; only 10% of respondents liked the college option. The study notes that “those who consciously chose medicine and the social sciences are ready for long-term training.” But a step lower, in grades 8-9, already 25% of schoolchildren called college a sufficient level of education – even more than a bachelor’s degree (24%). Vitaly Altukhov, director of development and research at Profilum, told Kommersant that the results of the study will be taken into account in the operation of the Ticket to the Future portal, which “is the flagship project for the vocational guidance of schoolchildren from the Ministry of Education.” Earlier, in March 2023, the Ministry of Education announced a unified career guidance model that would help children decide on their future profession and “realize themselves in our country.” “The task of all these tools is to balance expectations: the needs of the market and the desires of future professionals. That is, to synchronize the expectations of the student and the market,” said Mr. Altukhov.

Emilia Gabdullina, Ivan Tyazhlov