Future Skills international education forum opens in Kazan

An international training forum Future Skills opened in Kazan earlier in the day. Participants are official and technical delegates from WorldSkills International movement member states, national WSI organisation executives, researchers, experts and business officials.

Tatarstan Education and Science Minister Engel Fattakhov, Russia Education Ministry’s Department of Working Personnel Training director Natalia Zolotareva, WorldSkills Russia union president Pavel Chernykh spoke at the plenary meeting.

The event was “designed to become an international platform allowing to exchange experience, discuss the global trends in the field of economic needs and find new strategic solutions”, said Engel Fattakhov in welcoming remarks.

He told those present about Tatarstan’s socio-economic development, noting Tatarstan gave prioritised education.

“There are younger people more oriented to applied, working occupations. It is important to give them an opportunity to show their talent and abilities,” the minister is convinced.

“Russia and Tatarstan have opened many innovative production facilities that require new-generation staff, as demand for new competences appears,” he added.

WorldSkills Russia president Pavel Chernykh said the WorldSkills Day, a UN registered holiday, would be marked on 15 June.

Before the plenary meeting, discussion participants answered questions from journalists. “After many years of manufacturing companies operating in offshore zones, they come back to America, production continues to grow, increasingly more jobs are built. Economy is global, which is why international forums like this are important,” SkillsUSA executive director Tim Laurence commented. “Many younger people prefer IT or management to working occupations. We try to bring it around. The US has lately been intensively developing its energy sector, and our task is to persuade younger people to choose respective occupations,” he shared.

“We have gathered to this forum to discuss the social and economic factors determining the labour market. This will help understand what skills are necessary to meet the current alterations. Afterwards, it will be clear what we need to change in our education system,” Republic of China (Taiwan) Labour Ministry’s Labour, Occupational Safety and Health Institute director San Kwei Lin is convinced.

More than 30 countries take part in the forum in Russia, Sports Projects Executive Directorate director general Azat Kadyrov said.

“The pace of technological and social changes in various branches in the world increases - therefore, it is important to understand what the education system should train people for and what skills will be needed in view of all the global changes,” Global Education Futures director Pavel Luksha, the plenary meeting’s moderator, stressed.

“It is an important project not just for Russia but for WorldSkills movement as well,” he is convinced.