Valery Yungblyud, President of Vyatka State University: “In terms of training teachers, we are, in the full sense of the word, a “pivotal university”

 Today in Russia, pedagogical education is implemented mainly in non-pedagogical universities: classical universities, specialized technical, economic, humanitarian and other

According to data for 2020, pedagogical education in the country is carried out by 218 (+43 branches) of non-pedagogical universities and 33 (+11 branches) of pedagogical universities.

VyatSU President Valery Yungblyud commented on the situation:

    - The question of the existing correlation between pedagogical and classical education has not been as acute lately as it was several years ago. The established structure of higher education in the pedagogical segment has been taking shape for more than one year. It is partly a consequence of recent reforms, but not only. The current state of affairs was the result of a natural, progressive and inevitable process of integrating education, overcoming intellectual isolationism and interdepartmental barriers. For at least thirty years, pedagogical universities have followed the path of opening classical specialties, and today most of them, along with teachers, train specialists in classical specialties. Where this was not done in a timely manner, the results were usually disastrous. By no means all pedagogical universities have managed to preserve all pedagogical specialties, and in this regard, many regions have suffered significant personnel losses. Fortunately, our university offers a full range of pedagogical specialties, so that we, in terms of training teachers, are in the full sense of the word a “pivotal university”.

    It seems that the scientific and pedagogical community and educational organizers today have come close to understanding that high-quality teacher training in all school subjects is best achieved where the methodological and psychological-pedagogical training is as close as possible to the study of the teaching subject itself, where teaching the skill of the teacher's profession goes side by side with the assimilation of the fundamental foundations and the current state of knowledge on this subject, where a truly creative environment is created, focusing on constant self-development and practical application of knowledge. Therefore, the best results in teacher training today are achieved by those universities (both classical and pedagogical), where the mastery of subject knowledge is organically combined with the mastery of specific professional competencies. Our university rightfully belongs to such universities.

VyatSU, as a classical university, has all the necessary resources to ensure the implementation of higher pedagogical education in accordance with high modern standards. Professor Evgeny Vechtomov, head of the Department of Fundamental Mathematics of VyatSU, agrees with this.

    It is very good and correct that Vyatka State University has preserved the system of pedagogical education that was once at the Kirov State Pedagogical Institute, and then at the Vyatka State Pedagogical University, Vyatka State Humanitarian University. There are subject departments responsible for the graduation of different teachers - for example, our department is responsible for the graduation of mathematics and computer science teachers. I am sure that the connection between the main subject, the methods of teaching it, pedagogy, psychology, project activities can be fully implemented only in a classical university, such as VyatSU -

emphasized Evgeny Mikhailovich.

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