Today Minister of Education Andrei Ivanets is visiting educational institutions of the Gomel region as part of a working trip.

The program includes familiarization with the material and technical base, conditions for training and education of cadets of the Gomel Cadet School, participation in the opening of new laboratories of the competence center of the Gomel State Automotive College, familiarization with the activities of the Gomel Regional Center for Correctional Development Training and Rehabilitation, as well as a visit to the Gomel State Technical University named after P.O. Sukhoi and the Specialized Lyceum at the University of Civil Protection of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Belarus.

During his visit to the Gomel Cadet School, the Minister of Education met with the teaching staff, learned about the organization of the educational process, visited classrooms, a gym, a gymnasium, and a catering department. The school, which currently has 163 cadets, is equipped with modern technical teaching aids, scanners, multifunctional devices, and multimedia installations.

While on official visit to the Gomel State Automotive Mechanical College, Minister of Education Andrey Ivanets and Chairman of the Gomel Regional Executive Committee Ivan Krupko solemnly opened new laboratories of the competence center created on the basis of the college.

By the way, the competence center for the specialty "Machining of metal on machine tools and lines" on the basis of an educational institution was established in 2008. With the support of the Ministry of Education and the Republican Institute of Vocational Education, taking into account the prospects for the development of mechanical engineering and machine tool building in the city of Gomel, in 2019-2022 a project was implemented to retrofit the competence center.

The Automotive College closely cooperates with the industrial enterprises of the region. The educational process is carried out by 42 teachers and 35 masters of industrial training. In the 2022/2023 academic year, 858 people study at the educational institution, of which 378 people are at the SSO level and 480 at the TVE level.

“Among educational institutions, we occupy a leading position in the training of engineering specialists. In addition, we have trained more than one generation of turners, millers, machine tool operators with program control,” Gennady Kozlov, director of the Gomel State Automotive College, emphasized at the opening of the new laboratories of the competence center.

Rector of the Republican Institute of Vocational Education Valery Golubovsky noted that conditions are being created in the competence centers for advanced training of personnel. There are 52 competence centers in the republic today, which are evenly distributed across the regions.

“The profile of the center reflects the profile of the regional economy. We have three regions in mechanical engineering where large enterprises are concentrated - Minsk, Vitebsk region and Gomel. It is no coincidence that a machine-building competence center has been created in Gomel, because the technologies that need to be introduced during the modernization of production are installed ahead of time in the training laboratories of such centers. The President noted in his Address that today only the customer knows what personnel he needs in the first place. Considering that we train for 3-4 years, we must introduce these technologies ahead of time, so that at the modernization stage, workers, mid-level specialists capable of using these technologies, are already trained,” Valery Golubovsky emphasized.

The rector of RIPO also informed that each competence center works primarily for the regional network of specialized institutions. Seminars are held across the country, at which experts discuss the conditions for improving the efficiency of such centers, attracting not only young students, but also customers of personnel. The resource for increasing labor productivity is in the competencies that need to be improved to master new technologies.

In general, there are 50 colleges in the Gomel region, training is conducted in 50 specialties and 89 qualifications of vocational and secondary specialized education. The contingent of trainees is more than 20 thousand. Of the 40 institutions of secondary specialized education subordinate to the main department of education of the region, competence centers have been created in 6 institutions.

The vector of activity is the development by students of modern equipment, production and educational technologies, advanced techniques and methods of work, the creation of conditions for the training of workers (employees) and specialists in accordance with the needs of customer organizations. The guys study the production of construction, installation and repair work, technical support for road construction and land reclamation work, machine-building equipment and technologies, carpentry, parquet and glass work, bakery production technology, public catering, clothing production technology.

The meeting of the head of the department with the teachers of the Gomel Regional Center for Correctional and Developmental Education and Rehabilitation was also informative. Topical issues of the educational process, including individual correctional and pedagogical work, and the organization of the delivery of children were discussed.

109 children with special needs of psychophysical development receive help in this institution. The center has all the necessary conditions: a barrier-free environment for children with impaired functions of the musculoskeletal system; adaptive space for children with autistic disorders; correctional and developmental environment for children with severe intellectual disabilities. Among the special educational facilities are rooms for early comprehensive care, a music room, a room for social adaptation, a labor workshop, a sensory room, a room for adaptive physical education, and rooms for individual correctional work.

Every year the center is a platform of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus for the implementation of innovative and experimental projects (in total, 6 projects were implemented on the basis of the institution). From 2014 to the present, the center has been a branch of the Department of Social and Pedagogical Psychology of the Educational Institution “Gomel State University named after F. Skaryna".

The program of today's working trip of the Minister of Education to the region will end with a visit to the Gomel State Technical University named after P.O. Sukhoi and the Specialized Lyceum at the University of Civil Protection of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Belarus.