The Structure of Personnel Training within Getting Higher Education Meets the Needs of Economy: Problems and Solutions

This research article studies the problem of inconsistency of higher-educated personnel training structure to the current and future sectoral specialization of the Russian economy. One of the key tasks of the higher education system in any country is to train personnel who would be demanded by economy in the future. The responsibility for balancing the structure of training higher-educated personnel with the needs of organizations and various industries lies both on the government authorities and on the universities themselves. The authors analyze the correspondence of the structure of training personnel with higher education to the current and future needs of the socio-economic development of Russia in general and its regions in particular. In the course of the study, the structure of training personnel with higher education by enlarged groups of specialties and training programs has been compared with the current and prospective structure of the gross regional product, as well as with the distribution of the employed by sectors of the economy of all Russian Federation constituent entities. The results of the analysis by federal districts are based on the data obtained for the constituent entities, and make it possible to assess the imbalance in the structure of training personnel with higher education, to formulate possible reasons for the existing imbalances at the regional, federal, and universities’ levels. The study is based on the documents of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia concerning the distribution of admission control figures by the Russian Federation entities and enlarged groups of specialties and training programs, aswell as on the information from the Federal State Statistics Service. For most regions of Russia, the results of the analysis revealed the problem of inconsistency between higher-educated personnel training structure and the structure of the need for personnel as determined by the goals and objectives of socio-economic development. A possible way to solve this problem is to revise the universities’ development programs with due consideration of the long-term regional development prospects supported by a system of institutional measures on the part of education authorities, industries, and regions.