At the SUSU's "School 21", pupils from Chelyabinsk schools met Nikita Marchenkov, the Chairman of the Coordination Council for Youth Affairs in Science and Education of the Russian Federation Presidential Council for Science and Education.
The meeting was attended by twenty three school kids of the 8th-10th forms: part of them were representing the Governor's engineering class of the Chelyabinsk Lyceum No.11, and another part were members of the Movement of the First project from Lyceum No.148.
For the guests, the event started from an excursion to "School 21". It is a free-of-charge school of digital technologies (project of Sberbank), which in our region is based at South Ural State University. Children could see not only the equipped education clusters, game rooms and rooms for holding negotiations, but also learned about the competences in the IT field, as well as about how to take training in this school and about the prospects of employment in major IT companies in Russia.
At the in-person meeting with Nikita Marchenkov, the Chairman of the Coordination Council for Youth Affairs in Science and Education of the Russian Federation Presidential Council for Science and Education, pupils of the tenth form of the Governor's engineering class from Lyceum No.11 presented their own developments that made them winners of engineering-and-technology competitions. Artem Yantsen presented a technical model of a rocket, and Mikhail Motashkov demonstrated a model of a self-propelled apparatus for operation in narrow spaces. Representing Lyceum No.148 (Movement of the First project), Viktoriia Tuzova delivered a report on the "Employment for Teenagers: Problems and Ways to Solve them in the Context of Russian and International Practices", and Mikhail Domanin ‑ his work on the "Engineering of a Prototype Model of a Launch Vehicle and its Launch".
"I really enjoy such meetings with school kids and young people because I see them as the generations who will be creating our future," shared the Chairman of the Coordination Council for Youth Affairs in Science and Education of the Russian Federation Presidential Council Nikita Marchenkov. "The study of the generations of people living in Russia show that the wish to be useful for the society prevails namely among young people: there is a high demand for self-fulfilment and self-actualization in them. And science is the very field where you could effectively apply your intellectual resources. Through engaging themselves in science, young people will definitely feel useful and in demand. Here, in this field, artificial intelligence will still be no match for human beings for a very long time to come, that is why truly great opportunities open up for the Russian young people in scientific activity."
In the end of the meeting, senior school pupils talked to Nikita Marchenkov in an open mike format: children asked questions about the trends and challenges in the development of the Russian engineering science, the opportunities of communication between young scientists both within Russia and at the international level, as well as about the priority fields of research for young people in Russia.
"With the help of such events we try to systematize the work on the interaction between our university and the Governor's engineering classes," commented Deputy Head of the SUSU Office for Support to Continuing Education Larisa Glazyrina. "A "school-university-enterprise" triad principle is being implemented at our university. Over the recent years, we could clearly see the involvement of enterprises and how they create the conditions for teaching of students in a "mini-enterprise" format. This allows young people, while still studying at SUSU, to master unique skills and gain relevant knowledge that would help graduates get jobs at enterprises of big engineering in the future. School kids as trainees, in their turn, participate in scientific projects and solve project-and-technology tasks by taking part in topic-related competitions and Olympiads. To do that, they use the scientific-and-technical facilities of our university: laboratories and other technical spaces. And the most important thing is that they interact with student from engineering programmes. Since senior school kids are almost the same age as students, it is easier for them to adopt knowledge and experience – they understand each other well. Thanks to this triad-principle model, a pre-professional community is formed, which opens up opportunities of participation in real-life engineering projects for senior school children."
Governor's engineering classes are formed from pupils of the 8th to 10th forms for the period of two academic years in order to accordingly fulfil the main general-education programmes of pre-industry-specific and industry-specific levels, which are relevant for the priority engineering fields in the economy of the Chelyabinsk Region: intelligent manufacturing; materials science and physics; ecology and living systems; information technologies and information security in manufacturing and defence industry complex; electronics, radio engineering and communication systems; instrumentation engineering; optical and biotechnical systems and technologies; electrical and thermal power engineering; mechanical engineering; engineering-physics sciences and technologies; chemical technologies; materials technologies; and processes and production automation.