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CENTER FOR CAREER GUIDANCE AND CONSULTATION OF THE POPULATION IN THE NONGOVERNMENTAL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION INSTITUTE OF CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION “ATOMPROF”
AND ITS ROLE IN PROVIDING LIFELONG EDUCATION
M. N. Fedorova
1. Fundamental background in creation of the Center for Career Guidance and Consulting. The long-term interests of Russia include creation of a modern economy of an innovative type, integrated into the global economic territory and into the provision of the country’s national safety. A substantial role in this falls to the nuclear sector, which should become the engine for high technologies in the national economy. In order to achieve the established objective, the nuclear sector has been restructured and consolidated, and its development is accompanied by modernization and structural changes, the effectiveness of which is fundamentally dependant on its staffing of personnel. This is one of the most complicated problems of the contemporary stage of the sector’s development. The system of education and retention of personnel that has developed to the current day is far from perfect. It is essential to fulfill the conditions that are able to change the situation on the labor market and ensure staffing of the sector with qualified personnel.
The total number of workers in the sector constitutes around 300 thousand people, moreover half of these are older than 50 years old. The average age of mangers of the higher and middle rung is 55-60 years, and the average age of specialists is 45 years. With the general decrease in the number of researchers, their share in the age group over 60 years is increasing. The problem of retaining young specialists exists as well. Their share constitutes 18 % of the total number of those working in the sector, and their proportion remains lower than the proportion of the number of specialists who have reached retirement age. Moreover, the problem of continuity exists in the sector not only in terms of the generation of employees, but also in the transfer of critical knowledge. Thus, the age of employees as a carriers of this knowledge is over 51 years (42 % of the total number), which highlights the problem of management and transfer of specific knowledge to young atomic scientists.
The inflow of a new staff of atomic scientists depends also on the attractiveness of the sector, which has the following characteristics: (a) state significance for national security; (b) inclusion in the sphere of high
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technology; (c) the high research intensive nature of nuclear knowledge and technology; combination of complex mathematical, scientific, and engineering disciplines; the interdisciplinary character of a technical nuclear education; (d) the requirement for a high technological culture (safety culture), heightened requirements for general culture and moral-ethical norms of behavior (“physicists vs. lyricists”); (e) the principle of a critical mass of knowledge (it is impossible to be a little bit educated in the nuclear sector); (f) support and attention to the nuclear sector from on the part of the government of the country; (g) recovery of the trust in and prestige of nuclear energy; (h) the ability to solve the problem of energy supply and the ecological recovery of the planet, including through the use of thermonuclear fusion; (i) solution of tasks in adjacent sectors (the structure of matter, medicine, biotechnology, material sciences, agriculture, etc.); (j) extensive opportunities for career growth and international contacts; and (k) demand from IAEA for personnel - the best and most talented! At the current time, preparation of atomic scientists is carried out in 15 institutions of higher learning of the Federal Agency for Education and in education institutions of various levels of education. However, today the structure of the leading institutions of higher learning, the material and technical resources, and the teaching staff do not allow for the necessary widespread replacement of personnel.
2. Center for Career Guidance and Consulting of the Population.
The nongovernmental educational institution Institute of Continuing Professional Education “ATOMPROF” (hereafter - Institute) has gathered some experience in career guidance for youth: education of youth in regards to the nuclear, radiation, and ecological situation in the North-West Region; and formation of a positive attitude to nuclear energy as a prospective sector for building one’s career. Beginning from 2006, educational work has actively begun with representatives of social and professional groups (schoolchildren, university students, and teachers) in the following thematic groups: (a) a project for teachers of secondary educational institutions - “Use of Nuclear Energy and Ensuring Radiation Safety”; (b) a project for teachers of secondary educational institutions -“Nuclear Education and Personnel Policy”; (c) a school for teaches of secondary educational institutions - “Nuclear Energy and Technology”; (d) an elective course for students of the 9th to 11th grades - “Selection of a Profession. Nuclear Science and Technology”, etc. Each year a scientific conference “Northern Lights” for undergraduates, postgraduate students, and young specialists takes place on the base of the Institute, which is the basis for filling the sector with talented employees. In the future, active and
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large-scale work with schoolchildren in the region is proposed for their subsequent education in "nuclear” specializations and future work in regional enterprises.
The Center was created at the Institute with this goal, and on the basis of an integrated system of work with schoolchildren, teachers, and parents (olympiads, competitions, PR events, two-to-three week schools on physics and mathematics, master classes and lectures for schoolchildren and teachers, one-to-two week courses for upgrading schoolteachers’ qualifications, testing, etc.), it ensures a selection of talented youth from the region, first of all from the places where new power plants are located, for the National Nuclear Research University "MIFI”. Work in career guidance has encompassed no less than 100 schools, 300 teachers, and 5000 schoolchildren of the region. A regular exhibition will be organized of the Center for Career Guidance and Consulting in the Russian nuclear sector in the North-West Region. The Center’s work also offers cooperation with representatives of a wide range of the population in Saint Petersburg and the North-West Region as a whole (schoolchildren, university students, teachers, parents) for those who seek consultation for career guidance and self- determination in the Center.
Created and based at the Institute, the Center for Career Guidance and Consultation of the Population will facilitate the practical realization of lifelong education, both in the interests of the State Atomic Energy Corporation "ROSATOM”, and for the innovative development of Russia’s North-West.
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