General Conclusions and Recommendations on Human Resource Support for Program Implementation

This Section contains conclusions and recommendations on human resource support to implement the Program for productive force reorganization, modernization and transition to innovative national develop-ment. Part of the assertions repeats some of the statements above; others generalize the entire material of this Chapter.

1. Generally, the material of Chapter 15 mainly represents the educational component of the human resources system for the Program; as said elsewhere, this component is of key importance in the system of ‘human potential for national modernization’, and is in turn a complex system the evolution of which is predetermined by numerous causes and factors, with an array of functions realized in the society. Today, the connection between modern high-quality education and the perspective to build a civil society, a secure state and effi cient innovative economy – this link is obvious. The aforementioned importance and complexity of the ‘education’ component is supported by the fact that it is recognized and institutionalized, fi rst as ‘an economic activity’ (according to the ‘All-Russia Classifi er of Economic Activities’), and second, as an ‘economic industry’ that has educational institutions as its own components, complete with all material and spiritual assets⁵⁸.

2. The objectives and functions of the educational fi eld discussed above are designed to operate and develop factors which, fi rstly, determine the level, growth and development of productive labor by productive forces, through which man’s attitude to nature is manifest. These factors operate as the basis for productive labor dynamics because they immediately shape the productive force of labor as the possibility of labor’s output. And secondly, the same factors (if purposefully controlled) ensure development of productive forces and, consequently, work to achieve objectives to reconstruct and transform the nation’s productive forces. The translation of a potential labor output (as a possibility, through education) to real life depends on the social environment, economic system, its component production-related and institutional relations, on the effi ciency of managerial decisions, but fi nally – and critically – on practical action. The sector of education has a function that also addresses this side of economy’s eff ect on labor productivity. It is confronted with the need to build in a timely manner human resources that meet the requirements of the innovative nature of modern economy’s development, human

58 Human Capital and Education. М., TEIS, 2009, p. 172

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resources for progress in science and technology, to restructure the material basis of production, to train competent specialists with ample knowledge and adequate skills in nationwide management⁵⁹, people motivated to create and work proactively, aspiring to and persistent in adopting innovations.

3. With understanding the importance of training and education for development of the nation’s produc-tive forces, ‘Education’ Project was launched in Russian in 2006 as a top-priority national project intended to be further transformed into a national program for the development of education. As one of the key directions under the Project and the related Program, government support is provided to the process of education and upbringing of the new generation, at the federal and regional levels. The main goal of com-prehensive projects for modernization of education as basis for modernization of national productive forces is to give access to high-quality general education to all children regardless of where they may live. Here the quality of education is understood as the extent of satisfaction of current and future needs and demands of the individual, society and state, including social mobility, occupational and personal success, physical, mental and moral integrity of Russian citizens.

4. Comprehensive projects for modernization of regional systems of education envisage the creation of a new remuneration system for workers in general education in order to improve teachers’ incomes, switch to a standard-based per-capita fi nancing model for general-education schools, build a system to evaluate the quality of education, develop a network of general-education schools in the region, and involve the public more deeply in education.

5. The institutional restructuring now underway in Russia’s economy has changed the industry-based sys-tem of education. Industrially-oriented educational institutions for secondary and higher vocational levels have become much less ‘active’. The infl ux of students from other cities to industrially-oriented colleges in major cities tends to ebb. Forced by an array of processes taking place in regional economies, colleges have had to respond aggressively to such changes by reinforcing the peripheral vectors in their activities.

6. At the same time, the period during which new conditions for political, economic and social life are shaped in individual areas of the nation helps regional legislatures and executive governments develop an interest in establishing and improving vocational education as an active component in the life of Federal Subjects⁶⁰.

7. The demographic crisis currently at work in Russia aggravated by the problem of the brain drain presents one of the most serious threats to the national economy’s transition to innovation development, which is unthinkable without adequate human resources. The existing demographic situation and emerging ad-verse trends hamper steady growth of the economy and improvement of the people’s welfare and can re-sult in a disastrous reduction of working age population, a deteriorating demographics, and obsolescence of the country’s main human resource during the transition to an innovation economy. The ongoing out-fl ow of skilled – particularly young – specialists from Russia undermines the scientifi c, creative and cultural potential of Russian society, and aggravates the problem of Russia’s dependence on external technologies.

8. To improve the demographic situation and gradually increase human potential, and to build a reserve of competent managers and specialists for the burgeoning innovative economy, a comprehensive federal government program is necessary to control demographic and social processes; this includes government policy in immigration, a program to recruit skilled immigrants, and activities to stimulate internal migrat-ing mobility of Russian population.

9. Enforcement analysis of Federal Acts ‘On Education’ and ‘On Higher and Postgraduate Education’ dem-onstrates that some of their provisions are not fully enforaceable, while recommendations off ered by the

59Ibid, p. 177

60Ibid, p.270

115

experts of ‘Education’ national program remain unenforced, and thus the quality of the educational fi eld leaves much to be desired in terms of implementation of the action plan to develop Russia’s innovation economy.

10. The social split creates a serious education gap between children from diff erent social strata, which cre-ates premises for further diff erence in future.

11. Comparisons show that Russian children are seriously behind their peers from industrially developed nations in learning practical useful science concepts, skills and data. For the purposes of our systems of ed-ucation of children and teenagers, we need to develop eded-ucational standards, including those to address the list of competencies given in par. 15.2 of this Chapter, with continuity ensured in the standards for the system of general secondary and occupational college education.

12. The system of continuous occupational education (elementary-secondary-higher) is developed inad-equately, and this restrains technical and technological upgrade of economy, preventing effi cient mod-ernization of the social sphere; it is also a constraint on development of innovative economy and national modernization. We need to retrofi t the existing structure of vocational education, and optimize the pro-portion ratios of students in the system ‘vocational school – college – university’.

13. Our higher education is inadequately integrated with science research; this impacts the quality of spe-cialists trained, and undermines the potential for science research in Russia.

14. Implementation of the top-priority national project ‘Education’ revealed shortage of manpower needed for a national innovation economy, which in fact must be trained in advance compared to the schedule of the nation’s innovative development.

15. Innovative development of the economy assumes reproduction of the innovative workforce:

training specialists in new areas of engineering and technologies, economics and management, in-creasing the role of additional occupational education, to prepare workers who possess innovative abilities and competencies, understood as knowing how to independently initiate innovations in the course of work, find something new in others’ experiences and adopt it in their organization. This is exactly why we need to seriously strengthen the role of innovative management as an area in science research and academic subject, and as a practical tool to develop Russia’s innovation economy. The scale on which specialists and managers are trained for an innovation economy in Russia has to be expanded seriously.

16. It is necessary to create methodological training complexes in secondary and higher occupational schools nationwide to train managers and specialists for an innovation economy under a special inno-vative management curriculum addressed to individual groups involved in the R&D process, which will strengthen the innovative potential of schools as educational institutions, and as a result will satisfy the demand of national innovative economy for managers and specialists.

17. The system of innovation management training must involve all participants of the innovative process, from researchers to inventors to end users of the results of innovative work.

18. As conditions are created to develop the human resources for the Program to restructure Russia’s pro-ductive forces, eff orts must be focused on modernizing the entire system of instruction, upbringing and education of Russian citizens. The goal of the human resource program as regards instruction and educa-tion of Russian citizens is determined by the workforce reform program, the strategy to modernize and develop the innovative component of national economy. Hence, the goal of the instruction and education policy is to secure Russia’s competitive position among world leaders in education.

19. Special attention must be given to training a new generation of teachers, to restore the system of insti-tutes for advanced training and retraining of faculty who possess special knowledge, skills and techniques in instructing, training and educating Russian citizens of all age groups in the context of national

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zation, teaching the skills of innovative thinking, thus raising Russia’s investment value in the eyes of other nations.

20. We need to considerably improve the effi ciency of the system for upbringing and education of children under school age, ensuring maximized coverage of fi ve to six years old children (primarily those from low-income families, to off er them equal starting opportunities in school education).

21. To meet children’s individual needs for knowledge during their entire period of the general-education school, we need to create conditions to ensure access to additional education.

22. To raise the quality of educational work, the infrastructure for continuous vocational training must be developed, including the creation of a system of public vocational organizations where employers must be suffi ciently represented; the employers’ eff orts should be directed to develop market-based qualifi ca-tion requirements for implementaca-tion of occupaca-tional training programs that would train managers and specialists for various industries of the innovation economy, search and select modern innovative training technologies, and conduct control evaluation (certifi cation and accreditation) for the quality of education-al programs⁶¹.

23. State-private partnership organizations must also be involved in the fi eld of instruction and education for the purposes of the human resource program. The purpose of such partners is to bring together the re-sources in government and business to train competent manpower for the emerging innovation economy in Russia, to ensure equal responsibility for the quality of vocational education, more justifi ed and motivat-ed planning to satisfy the nemotivat-eds in training competent managers and specialists, to provide the national economy with expertly trained employees of mass occupations such as technicians, workers, service per-sonnel, to ensure complementary relations between government-contract training and target corporate training programs, and to support competitive and innovative national development⁶².

24. To achieve these goals and objectives of human resource support to implementation of the Workforce Reorganization, Modernization and Development of Innovative National Economy Program, we need to create a three-level system of manpower supply control centers (MSCC) for implementation of the Program.

The system must consist of the Federal Control Center, regional centers and local centers, in the format of governmental, public and/or government-private organizations.

25. The Federal MSCC is to participate to develop national innovation policy. It will develop the govern-ment’s policy and programs in instruction, education and employment of Russian citizens, develop the regu-lations (including legislation) to build and develop an innovative workforce, it will determine the bulk of budget fi nancing for these processes, build innovation centers, foundations and other federal-level bodies, it will shape the government’s policy toward young citizens, and institute prizes and scholarships in sci-ence and high-tech, and a system to protect intellectual property.

26. Regional MSCC centers will specify HR policy and allocate additional fi nancing for it based on specifi c objectives. Among other things, they will develop regional programs and forecasts for the development of instruction and education, programs and forecasts for employment, business enterprise and innovations;

they will create subjects of innovative activities, develop programs for regions to participate in technology chains; it will also institute regional-level prizes and scholarships for achievements in science, engineering and technologies, and organize regional contests and grants in the fi eld of innovations.

27. The role of municipal manpower supply control centers for the program must be especially highlight-ed, because it is the municipal level that will have to identify and support talented children, and provide career consulting for them (through instituted various formats of creative science and engineering

activi-61Ibid, p.274

62Ibid, p.280

117

ties for young people), to promote benchmark experience and achievements and to support innovative small businesses. Specifi c businesses resident in respective municipalities must develop (and/or attract) innovative projects, build innovative teams, motivate and provide incentives for employees’ creative activi-ties, organize in-house cooperation, labor specialization and enhancements, continuous training, career planning based on employee’s personal characteristics and innovative abilities, extensive opportunities for their creative work and current innovations, and workmanship contests.

28. The system of manpower control centers must promote and update activities to instruct Russian citi-zens about modernization and innovative development, in order to rear competent and responsible, mor-ally and physicmor-ally healthy young citizens; activities to raise the status and signifi cance of general and addi-tional education for children; it must also update eff orts for social development of children and youth, and assure their right to high-quality education and creative development.

29. To monitor the results of the Program, a system of balanced implementation indicators must be worked out at three levels: federal, regional and local, as well as for age groups of Russian citizens. At the same time, the MSCC system specialists must monitor the results using detailed indicators.

30. Guiding principles in activities of the subjects of manpower supply control for the program, and