A meeting of the public advisory council on education under the Ministry of Education took place today at the National Children's Technology Park.

Before the meeting, members of the public advisory council took a tour around the Children's Technology Park and visited laboratories and classrooms.

The meeting was opened by the chairman of the PAC, Igor Karpenko, who outlined the range of issues to consider. These are familiarization with the work of the National Children's Technopark; innovations in the Rules for the admission of persons for higher and secondary specialized education (Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus No. 416 of December 29, 2023) and discussion of a comprehensive system for training engineering personnel in the School-University system.

When the floor was passed to the head of the Main Directorate of Vocational Education of the Ministry of Education, Sergei Pishchov, he informed about the introduction of a number of changes to the Admission Rules provided for by the Presidential Decree.

These include changing the registration deadlines for Centralized testing (from April 9 to April 22); the possibility of admission of applicants on the terms of targeted training through a competition among individual organizations-customers of personnel that ensured a competitive situation in the event that the competition in the specialty as a whole did not take place. Also, for target-oriented applicants, a lower threshold of an average educational document score of no lower than 7.0 is introduced (except specialties most in demand by the economy); determination of a unified approach to the admission of persons for admission to correspondence courses, both on a paid basis and at the expense of the budget (the need to have at least 10 months of work experience on the date of submission of documents for persons with general secondary education).

Sergey Pishchov drew attention to the fact that there is an option to enroll in colleges and subsequently receive higher education in a shortened period of study, both full-time and part-time.

The next important point concerns the expansion of opportunities for gifted and motivated applicants when they enter regional HEIs.

Thus, the chance of exam free admissions for persons with a gold (silver) medal, or a diploma of secondary specialized or vocational education with honors in regional higher education institutions is provided for all specialties, with the exception of specialties in the educational profile “Healthcare”, specialties “International Relations” , “International Law”, “Jurisprudence”, “Economic Law”, “Public Administration and Law”, “Oriental Studies”, as well as specialties whose core test disciplines are “Creativity”, “Physical Culture and Sports”.

Among the innovations in the Admission Rules are such as vesting the Government with the authority to determine lists of specialized classes and specialties into which graduates of such classes can enroll on preferential terms; expanding opportunities for admission on preferential terms for graduates of specialized military-patriotic classes and military-patriotic clubs (removing restrictions on the minimum certificate score).

“The changes made to the Admission Rules will make it possible to improve the system for selecting applicants, as well as create fair, equal, and transparent conditions for admission,” stated Sergei Pishchov.

BNTU provost Yuri Nikolaychik is convinced that the system of engineering and technical education must guarantee high-quality training of workers, employees and specialists, and it must ensure the replenishment of the personnel potential of many sectors of the economy.

“The development of a multi-component educational system for training personnel, providing a holistic, effective and future-oriented system in the interests of the national economy, is one of the priority government tasks,” said Mr. Nikolaychik.

Among the promising areas are the modernization of regulatory support, the creation of new educational programs and trajectories, updating the methodological and material and technical base, expanding and strengthening international relations and, of course, building a system of continuous engineering and technical education (school - university).

Participants in the meeting of the public advisory council were informed that BNTU, under the leadership of the Ministry of Education, has implemented the idea of special training for students of the third stage of general secondary education for admission to engineering specialties through a system of specialized education. Thus, under the leadership of the Ministry, 237 engineering classes have been opened since the 2023/2024 academic year, with 2,587 students enrolled.

At the stage of professional training, as an element of the complex school-university system, the creation of conditions for strengthening its practice-oriented nature acquires special significance. To solve this problem, BNTU has created 104 branches of departments at leading enterprises and organizations.
The university pays special attention to the issue of organizing production practices in interaction with industrial personnel contracting organizations that keep searching for motivated specialists. Every year, BNTU concludes more than 3,500 agreements on the organization of pre-graduate practice and more than 6,000 agreements on the organization of practical training in the specialty.

“It is necessary to state the fact that BNTU has already created and is successfully implementing a comprehensive system for training engineering personnel (school – university – enterprise). In our opinion, the implementation of such training is impossible without close cooperation with institutions of general secondary education and personnel contracting organizations,” concluded Yuri Nikolaychik.