The plenary session was opened by President of Russia Vladimir Putin.
The grand meeting of executives was conducted at Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University – out of Moscow for the first time.
Addressing 600 rectors of Russian and overseas rectors, Vladimir Putin said, “Today, in this outstanding educational institution, I suggest discussing the problems of higher education in today’s circumstances – what the universities can and must do to achieve technological breakthroughs, to help Russia steadfastly move forward; the matters that we have been talking about recently.”
One of the five panel sessions – about secondary education and its links with tertiary education – was moderated by Rector Ilshat Gafurov. He shared details of the University’s approach to teacher education, “Teacher education at our University is handled by 9 of the 17 educational units in all subjects of the national school curriculum. 16% of our students are pedagogy majors, and we consider this to be our important social mission. KFU is the only of the Project 5-100 participants which chose teacher education as its strategic development project – this helped us enter the top 75 European universities in rankings and positions 201-250 in QS rankings.”
Minister of Education and Science of Russia Olga Vasilyeva spoke about enrolment and, in particular, about public funding for students. This coming academic year, 57.2% of vacancies at universities will be state-funded.
Many of the participants of the convention will have the chance to continue discussions at the 4th International Forum on Teacher Education, due to be held at KFU on 22nd – 24th May. 93 Russian and 65 overseas universities are expected to send delegates. Among them are such global leaders in teacher education as Harvard, Oxford, Manchester, Glasgow, Arizona State, and Leuven.
