The learning process is becoming continuous
The higher education system now concerns almost everyone. Continuous learning is becoming an increasingly popular trend. With the world changing rapidly, many processes are being automated, people need new skills, especially those that meet the requirements set by economic digitalisation. As a result, there is a growing demand for technical specialties that could help to implement digital transformation, coupled with an increasing range of people interested in getting training.
The world is changing, and there is a need, both personally and professionally, for continuous education. In this sense, all of us who work in education must adapt to these trends. The life-long learning approach in which people receive education continuously, thus improving their skills, is becoming a reality
Yuri Levin
Dean of SKOLKOVO School of Management
Education concerns almost every person in one way or another. If before, higher education concerned mainly school graduates who came to the university for a profession, today, people who have already made their careers in one way or another are also turning to educational institutions. However, these groups, comprising both young and older students, come with different requests.
Older students’ educational requests are quite specific: it may be either a deepening of knowledge in their field of activity or a desire to master a different profession.
High-school graduates come to the university not yet fully understanding what exactly they want to do, and the university becomes a place where they can try out different forms of activity and plot their own course.
A flexible curriculum is a must
One new criterion for quality education is being able to choose. Where the student can choose what they would like to do from a wide range of courses. So, there is the opportunity to build their own learning trajectories and acquire a unique combination of skills.
It seems to us that what is needed is to start with the basics, in a way that is maybe not so flexible for a short time at first, and then to give students more independence and the opportunity to make their own choices. As well as quickly adding a practical application.
Elena Bunina
CEO of Yandex in Russia
However, this choice must be approached consciously, without the fear of taking on what looks difficult. University is the very place where you can try things and not be afraid of the consequences of something not working out.
It is extremely important to learn, to make decisions for yourself: What do I want? Where do I want to go? It is very important to test yourself with very complex solutions and tasks. To attempt to solve a problem that is bigger than you.
Andrey Volkov
Director, Institute for Public Strategy, SKOLKOVO School of Management
Students with a conscious approach to the educational process will also approach work similarly: they are invested in what they are doing. Such workers, who are not indifferent to their work, are very attractive to companies, but the nature of demands from employers are completely different.
We see how young people are making completely different demands of the employer. The system where the employer simply pays wages is gone. It’s just that the salary is almost of no interest to young people. They are interested in what they can achieve themselves and in what the company wants to achieve.
Vyacheslav Nikolaev
President of MTS
Theory must complement practice
The knowledge and skills that the university provides quickly become obsolete. However, the university is a special social environment in which the student must first learn to learn and to overcome. The process of acquiring an education is becoming more meaningful. In an era when many professions are being automated, students want at the learning stage not just to assimilate a body of information, but to understand what to do with the knowledge acquired and how it will help them realise their potential.
Internships at companies and solving practical problems help with this. Universities and businesses are increasingly establishing joint programmes such as the MOOVE programme by SKOLKOVO x MTS and the Product Management Executive Programme as well as opening faculties and departments. On the one hand, such various kinds of cooperation help students understand how they can apply their knowledge in real working conditions. On the other hand, such collaborations with universities help businesses monitor trends in education and cultivate their own employees.
Only the active engagement of companies and cooperation between universities and corporations will make it possible to train those employees who are highly sought after in the modern economy.
Yuri Levin
Dean of SKOLKOVO School of Management
Classical university education requires the student to carry out research activities that culminate in a thesis. Today, however, many universities have begun to offer alternative options. For example, a student's final work may be the development of a startup or a solution for a real corporate project.
It is not only technical specialties that will be in demand in the future
The modern economy is actively digitalising itself. In relation to this, an increasing number of young people have begun to choose technical specialties. The demand for IT experts is as high as ever; however, as digitalisation continues to spread, IT knowledge will shift from being a specialisation to a basic literacy, as happened with the English language, for example, and the translation profession.
For the digital economy to develop, much more than technical skills are required. Soft skills, communication skills, the ability to work in a team, to adapt to others and, no matter how trite it sounds, to look somebody in the eyes when talking to them, rather than at a computer screen: all this is extremely important, and, unfortunately, traditional universities still do not pay this enough attention.
Yuri Levin
Dean of SKOLKOVO School of Management
Against this background, the role of the teacher is growing not as a provider of information, but as someone who engages students in thought processes and reasoning. This way, the student learns to take in information, make sense of it, and act on it: skills that can be acquired only through interacting with professors and researchers. The educational process in this instance aims to develop the intellect of those arriving as students.
Developing the intellect is a complex objective, requiring time, communication, and specific technologies. If we can speed up meeting this objective using digital technology or some other learning technology, that’s good, we all use it. However, there is no need to substitute the question of the tool and that of the goal. It is not only incredibly important to teach how to learn, but also important to be able to understand your reason for studying, the whole point of your training.
Dmitry Livanov
Rector of MIPT
