Formation of personnel corps of engineers in the Urals: sociological aspect

In terms of crisis economic development, one of priority goals for the technical institutes of higher education is to train engineers who are competitive on the regional labour markets. The main root of the problem of low prestige of the engineering profession in Russia, the slippage in the personnel training in technical universities lies in the depreciation of engineering work, and reduction of its social and economic attractiveness. The gap between science, education and industry leads to aging of engineering staff at the manufactures and to migration of the most talented engineers into other fields of activity. This paper analyzes current problems of engineers training organization in the Urals. The causes of sharp decline of the engineering profession social status in Russia, the fall of interest of secondary school graduates to continuation of their studies in technical institutes of higher education are reviewed. The authors show that the formation of engineering competence as a defining personal and vocational quality of a specialist involves actualization of the student's motivation, one's active and purposeful adaptation to the educational process, increasing one's responsibility for mastering the curriculum. Conclusions and suggestions of the authors are based on the results of a comprehensive sociological research conducted by them in 2011 in five high schools of the Urals (Yekaterinburg, Nizhnevartovsk and Chelyabinsk). The survey showed that during the stage of young specialists' preparation, cooperation in the «university - enterprise» system is actually shifted to the interaction, in fact, between institute of higher education and young professionals who act as the sellers of their labour. The authors believe that it makes sense to roll over (or rather - to stimulate) the active engineering work of the most productive engineering professionals who have reached retirement age. Equally sharp and critical are the issues of reproduction and preservation of professors and teachers in the technical (and not just technical) universities. In this case, the refusal of the university to use the target distribution system for its graduates should not be associated with a complete removal of the responsibility of educational institutions for the future of young engineers in the labour market.