State to promote university textile sector training

Tertiary education training of specialists for Russia’s struggling textile and clothing sector is to be expanded. The Ministry of Industry and Trade has already told universities operating courses for the textile and other light industries to recruit more students and teachers.

And its minister said the ministry is considering rolling out new clothing and textile-focused training programmes and courses at education institutions elsewhere.

Speaking earlier this month the minister, Denis Manturov, stressed that Russia retained sufficient higher education capacity to expand textile and clothing industry-relevant training.

Existing textile training centres in the tertiary education sector include those at the AN Kosygin Moscow State Textile University and the Russian Correspondence Institute of Textile and Light Industry, also in Moscow.

Manturov added in comments at his ministry’s headquarters in Moscow that clothing and textiles-focused vocational education could also take place in specialist training centres, to be established throughout Russia in coming years.

This expansion would help achieve a goal set by President Vladimir Putin to modernise what has been a struggling industry, which has been losing sales to cheap imports from East and South Asia.

Putin wants to turn this decline around, and last year announced a series of government stimulus packages designed to achieve this. If his policy works, the industry would require significant numbers of trained staff: Putin wants to see 15 million jobs generated in Russia’s textile and related industries by 2020.

While Manturov did not disclose more details of the plan, officials told University World News that there was a strong possibility that training centres would be established close to existing textile and clothing industry hubs.

Indeed, Manturov commented: “The training of specialists should mostly take place in those regions which have already had well-established textile production and can be considered as textile clusters.

“There is also a need to revive regional vocational education and to increase the attractiveness of working in the industry. Regional governments should take care of this.”

Manturov added that the government should ensure there is a vocational technical school within any district where there is a major textile company.

Rudolph Sitdikov, director of the Kama Polytechnic College in Tatarstan, a leading Russian university for textile studies, commented on the policy: “The Russian textile industry still cannot solve the problem of a shortage of highly qualified personnel.

“The share of unskilled workers in the industry is currently about 50%, which is rather high. Taking into account the president’s order to create 15 million jobs in the industry by 2020, solving the problem of staff scarcity is extremely important….”

One innovative element of the government plan is the creation of regional light and textile industry associations that will be charged with promoting the expansion of training for their zones of the country.

According to a senior official at the industry and trade ministry, many national textile producers in Russia currently avoid purchasing modern industry equipment because they lack trained personnel to operate such a plant.

One role of the regional associations would be to liaise between higher education institutions and producers, so that training programmes may be better linked to the demand for skills.