Forest Club model projects and sites

Issue 8-9, Nov. 1998

The Moscow State University of Forestry is preparing specialists for fire extinction. The specialization of fire extinction and prevention exists no more on the forest department. Does forestry really need not these specialists? I asked Boris Pavlovich Vlasyuk the head of college department of Rosleskhoz about this.

The situation has changed considerably for the rest time. The forestry has a new legislation now. We need managers who can work on the civil service. The engineer must know all the abstrusity of proceedings at law and must know how to instrument, make a contract. The administer must have a superficial knowledge in ecology: Rio de Janeiro Declaration, negotiations on sustainable forestry, certification. But there is no institute where such specialists are prepared.

The worldwide known contract system of studying means that the firm tells the college what specialist it needs and the college prepares such specialist. Nobody wants to pay too mach but everybody needs specialists agreeable to the modern standards.

Unfortunately the studying program of forestry engineers in MSUF stays unchanged for years. On one hand it is not agreeable to the present day standards and on the other nobody cares for the future employment of the students. The graduates can work everywhere but not in forestry.

The situation can be corrected by the contract system. The mechanism is rather simple: a leskhoz or air base awards a contract with a college and student. The college is to prepare required specialist including additional disciplines when needed. The enterprise is to employ the graduate and to provide housing. The student is to study well and to work on the enterprise after graduation. The enterprise is not obliged to pay a scholarship to the student but it can do it in addition to the scholarship supported by government. The contract is obligatory document and there must be a penalty for breaking it.

For example in Ekaterinburg there is a tradition to organize meetings of forestry administrations heads and students. The administrations have a possibility to look about future colleagues and to interest them not exepting material aspect. The same situation is in Bryansk and Voronezh.

This method of preparing specialists require some extra activity of looking for enterprises and organizations that need specialists. The base university of the industry does not use this method; it is easier to keep commercial admission when the university gain money for preparing specialists but in this case it does nothing for organizations or enterprises because the program is out-of-date. That's the condition for closing specialisations.

But we need well-taught specialists in different fields including fire extinction and preventing. Has anybody talked with Chitinskaya of Irkutskaya air base? If even somebody has there is no results and no contracts.

The tendency is different now. New institutes and technical shcools are opening in the regions were specialists are most needed. The license is easy to get; but the quality of teaching can be different and we are to control it.

So the problem is that we need specialists whose qualification is high and up-to-date.