News in Press-centre

Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) is introducing a demonstration exam in accordance with WorldSkills Russia standards for students of higher education programs. The exam will be held from June 26 to June 28 for the first-year students pursuing BS in CAD Engineering at the School of Engineering.

According to Mikhail Sivtsev, Director, FEFU Department of Secondary Vocational Education and Development of Professional Competencies, WorldSkills is a tool for assessing the level of students' skills in accordance with international standards. The first exam in the School of Engineering will allow us to work out a mechanism to introduce exams covering several competencies in FEFU for the next academic year.

“Within the framework of secondary vocational education, the demonstration exam is introduced as a form of final certification throughout the country. The relevant instruction was given by the President of Russia. But we decided to test this format in higher education first and will conduct the exam as an intermediate evaluation of the knowledge of freshmen,” said Mikhail Sivtsev. “Our goal is to arrange for enterprises to receive graduates who are ready to perform production tasks without on-site training and to implement their own projects.”

The format of the exam assumes the modeling of real production conditions in which students shall demonstrate their practical skills. Participants are evaluated by independent experts, including the employees of the partner enterprises. According to the WorldSkills Russia standard, a graduate must perform production tasks, understand the complete technological cycle, adjust her/his knowledge and skills to the needs of the market.

“Employers need specialists, adapted to production and ready to perform tasks from the first day. Besides, with such a rapid pace of technological development, we must pay special attention to the transformation of professions and the emergence of new ones. That is why, when implementing the demonstration exam, FEFU identified the region's enterprises as key partners and experts,” said Mikhail Sivtsev.

In preparation for the implementation of WorldSkills standards in FEFU, the faculty and employees of enterprises were trained under the Demonstration Exam Expert Program. The course was conducted by WorldSkills Russia expert Rodion Khasanov. The speaker noted the obvious advantages of WorldSkills for all participants of the process. For higher education institutions, this is an improvement in the quality of training. The exam will complement the professional portfolio of the graduate, and the employer, in turn, will be confident in the level of professional skills of the specialist. In addition, enterprises get access to the all-Russian database of participants of WorldSkills demonstration examinations and championships and, based on their results, they can choose education providers for cooperation.

WorldSkills is an international non-profit movement whose goal is to increase the prestige of the working professions and to develop vocational education by harmonizing the best practices and professional standards throughout the world. To this end, competitions of professional skills in accordance with WorldSkills standards are regularly held in different countries.