Rector Ilshat Gafurov is one of the invited speakers.
The plenary session began with President Rustam Minnikhanov's welcome, «We have for a long time been discussing the necessity for establishing an international forum for exchange and expert opinions. I hope this will become an annual event».
Technical progress moves with accelerating speeds. It’s important for education professionals to teach the youth fast learning methods and cultivate their taste to self-development.
It seems that Kazan University has found some answers to this challenge. Since becoming a federal university it has been implementing a strategy that was recently named “University 3.0” – the one that unites education, research, and technological transfer.
On the question about the University's place in the life of the country and its citizens Rector Ilshat Gafurov had this to say, “A university is a very longstanding type of organization. We have been here for more than 200 years. Are there many companies with such history? This is because universities have always been in demand – differently in different periods”.
The Rector then talked about how the University works on new technologies and their transfer to the industry. This has allowed to earn about a third of total income as of now.
Universities, however, have always been cultural and enlightenment centers, and this hasn;t changed. Kazan Federal University pays special attention to that, including its multicultural and multilingual programs of teacher education and development. The University aims at developing professional and soft skills and monitoring graduates’ successes in their future employment.
Moreover, the University's participation in Project 5-100 allowed to develop new priority areas, among which Teacher 21 occupies a very important place. All the main structural units are fully involved, including 4 excellence centers, 2 collective use centers, 3 translational centers, 2 secondary schools (lyceums), and teacher training center that serves 7 thousand individuals annually. The University’s international popularity has grown sizably, with over 4 thousand foreign citizens currently enrolled in all types of programs.
The EDU Russia forum takes up three days and will wrap up on March 4th.