“We went to this for five years, but the changes began long before the university received a new status. Five years ago, it would have been illogical to be a university, but now we have opened new programs that did not exist before”, said Dmitry Dubrov, rector of the Polar State University. “We have increased the number of students, many nonresident students have appeared, they have new requests for the educational process. There are more employers, the city administration works very actively with our students, new opportunities for practice and employment have emerged”.
In September, the former Norilsk State Institute was renamed the Fedorovsky Polar State University. According to the rector, the most important thing in the renaming was that the word ‘industrial’ was excluded. In the new status, the university will be able to meet the staffing needs of not only Norilsk, but the entire Arctic. And, first of all, to produce specialists in professions that are in short supply in the city.
“When we were called an industrial institute, we could not train specialists for other areas – non-industrial and non-technical. And now we will be able to prepare teachers, doctors and lawyers,” says Dmitry Dubrov.
As for the training teachers, there are specialists at the university to teach them.
“To train doctors, we need to have our own polyclinic or work on the basis of the Norilsk interdistrict hospital. On their basis, we can open our own departments: we will teach general education subjects at the university, and special subjects on the fields of polyclinics”, said Dmitry Dubrov.
Another new direction is the training of lawyers: law enforcement agencies have a large shortage of personnel.
“The Norilsk department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is ready to employ 25-30 people annually. In addition, the city has a legal class on the basis of school No. 14, it is filled annually, its graduates want to study to become lawyers”, said the PSU rector.
Now the university is restoring some of the specialties that were closed more than ten years ago.
“We also have a certain order within the industrial block of Nornickel – where we should expand. For more than ten years the university has not trained specialists in Production Automation. And now we are gaining the second stream. Another profile is Minerals. This year we have recruited 50 miners, 25 of them will go to Mining department, another 25 – to Minerals Enrichment. We will also meet the personnel shortage of Nornickel in this area”, explained Dmitry Dubrov.
In addition, the university signed an agreement with the Siberian Fire and Rescue Academy of the State Fire Service of the Ministry of Emergencies of Russia, in the near future they will open a representative office in Norilsk and train specialists.
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Text: Ekaterina Maksimova, Photo: Nikolay Shchipko
