MINISTER OF EDUCATION OF KUZBASS — WITH A BUSINESS VISIT TO TSPU

June 17, 2021, the Minister of Education of Kuzbass paid a business visit to the Tomsk State Pedagogical University. The purpose of the trip was a meeting with the rector and students of the university on issues of training and employment.

In the business part of the program, the Minister of Education of Kuzbass S. Y. Balakireva, Head of the Department of Education of Kemerovo City Administration N. Y. Dashkovskaya, Chairman of the Committee of Education and Science of Novokuznetsk City Administration Y. A. Solovyeva talked with the rector of the TSPU A.N. Makarenko, Vice-Rector for Youth Policy and Educational Work D. B. Nasonov and Advisor to the Rector of the TSPU, the rector of the Tomsk Regional Institute of Professional Development and Retraining of Teaching Staff O. M. Zamyatina. Also S. A. Pfetzer, Deputy Minister of Education of Kuzbass remotely took part in the conversation.

The common theme was the discussion of interaction and development of optimal ways of preparing teaching staff for the Kemerovo Region. Indeed, the Tomsk State Pedagogical University has a significant number of applicants from Kuzbass: it takes second place following the Tomsk Region, which is the leader in the number of applicants. Despite this, it is no less important to develop a clear understanding of the purposeful demand from the Kemerovo Region: what teachers does the region need more, what training programs should be launched or optimized at the university in this regard, in what formats training of Kuzbass applicants can take place.

Later on, the visit program included an open dialogue with the Tomsk State Pedagogical University's students, who came to study at the university from Kemerovo Region. The main questions which were raised during the conversation were: what trajectories of future professional self-determination the students were considering; readiness of the students to return to their home region after graduation; what should be done to make a wish to work in the pedagogical field in their native Kuzbass a priority. The Minister of Education of Kuzbass and her colleagues told about the changes which are taking place in the region: construction of new schools according to the modern standards, growth of teachers' salary which now reaches 40 000 thousand rubles, readiness to provide young specialists with accommodation and many other things. During the conversation, students raised questions about the chances after graduation to work in the departments and offices of education; about the problems of teachers in small towns, where the infrastructure is not developed enough and there are problems of cultural development and leisure; about the importance of raising the prestige of the psychologist in educational institutions.

Of course, a short meeting could not be called comprehensive in terms of answers to the questions raised, but by the decision of both sides it was the beginning of an open dialogue about the cooperation between the Ministry of Education of Kuzbass and the Tomsk State Pedagogical University in terms of teacher training, and with students - about what should be done to make each of them, coming from big and small towns of Kemerovo Region, to return to their homes to teach. At the end of the meeting, students of the TSPU and representatives of the Ministry of Education of Kuzbass exchanged contacts in order to return once again to an open conversation about how to attract graduate teachers to their native region.