The decision was taken as a result of yesterday's meeting of the PMR President with deputies and public figures of Slobodzeya district to hold today a thematic meeting dedicated to a specific issue raised the day before: to close or keep the Polytechnic College of Slobodzeya. Representatives of the Government of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, the Ministry of Education, the district administration and the city and district council, and representatives of the polytechnic college were invited to the working discussion.
Vadim Krasnoselsky requested updated data reflecting the demand for the educational institution. According to the director of the educational institution, it is currently attended by 454 people. The students are both tuition-free students and contractors. 63 young people are studying in correspondence format. There are 310 of them in addition to the main category of technical school students, knowledge and professional skills in various working specialties are obtained here as part of advanced training and vocational training courses. The President was interested in the residents of which settlements formed a student team. The vast majority (393 people) is young people living in Slobodzeya district: 168 are city dwellers, 225 are villagers. 18 from Tiraspol, 11 from Bendery, 12 from Dnestrovsk and 12 from Grigoriopol, three from Kamenka, two students from Rybnitsa and Dubossary. An important fact: 42 orphans, four people with special needs and 92 children from large or single-parent families study at the Polytechnic College of Slobodzeya. All these aspects are not so much statistical as social ones, Vadim Krasnoselsky emphasized after listening to the announced data. The infrastructure of the Polytechnic College at the time of its creation was designed for seven hundred students. Changing realities and approaches to the educational process required the use of more premises. They were rebuilt and repurposed. As a result, the material and technical base is designed for 520 students today. That is, the percentage of workload of the educational institution is quite large, they said at the meeting. The President asked about the staff of the Polytechnic College, specifying whether the staffing is sufficient, specifying the level of professionalism of teachers and masters, and whether there are many external part-time workers. The college employs 87 people to date. This is their only job for most of them. The exception is employees who teach those areas in which they work in parallel in other structures, for example, in an independent paramilitary fire department or a driving school. Such units, and these are good practices, were noted at the meeting.
Summing up the arguments in favor of preserving the educational institution, Vadim Krasnoselsky focused on such an aspect as securing youth in rural areas, as a result, the development of villages and the agro-industrial complex, which is an important component of the Pridnestrovian economy. The study of rural children in the city will inevitably lead to the washing out of the personnel potential of rural enterprises, which will stop the increase in agricultural production, the President considers.
Outcome of the discussion: the decision was made to keep the Slobodzeya Polytechnic College as a valuable component of the system of primary and secondary vocational education. The President drew attention to the need to include the educational institution in the effective mechanism of dual (practice-oriented) education. Close cooperation with manufacturing enterprises, shortening the training period for working specialties that are in demand in the region and in the country's economy as a whole, the opportunity to receive not only scholarships, but also wages, a guarantee of employment – all this will attract even more young people, Vadim Krasnoselsky is sure. The multi-stage education allows making well-considered decisions and effectively using personal resources – time and financial resources, the President noted.
The issue of updating the infrastructure of the educational institution remains open. The state will help in its solution. At the same time, as the Head of the administration of Slobodzeya Vasily Tishchenko assured, the district is ready to actively engage in this work already this year.
