YAKUTSK, November 9. /TASS/. The Arctic Training Center plans to launch new educational programs to train teachers and IT specialists, that are of high demand in Yakutia's northern districts, the center's Director Mira Lebedeva told TASS.

"We are analyzing the demand for personnel in the areas of our presence. We can say for sure that the Bulunsky District needs teachers, and thus we plan together with the Vilyuisk Pedagogical College to form a group of students there. Additionally, we may open an IT direction together with the Aityn College of Digital Technologies (the Pokrovsky College)," she said.

In Arctic districts that do not have secondary professional education institutions, the center will open such groups at schools - for example, in the Oleneksky, Anabarsky and Srednekolymsky Districts, she said.

Schools train future herders

The center plans to teach children in the Arctic the basics of reindeer husbandry. "Traditionally, children in the Borogon school in the Bulunsky District are engaged in this direction. However, formally, due to the lack of a license, the students were not given certificates of their first profession. Now that we are implementing a network educational program, we will be able to teach children and to issue documents for them," the center's director added.

The Arctic Center has been working on a unified educational cluster to train and upgrade earlier skills in popular specialties. One of the clusters will be in the village of Tiksi - to train specialists for the industries, transport and hydrometeorology. The center will offer programs to train specialists for the Roads of the Arctic Company that serves roads in populated areas and numerous "winter roads".

The Zhigansky and Verkhoyansky divisions will cooperate in a single cluster to train workers and specialists in housing and communal services and energy, which are being upgraded in the Arctic regions. The agro-industrial direction will have new opportunities - to train personnel in fisheries and agriculture. The 'Fish and Seafood Processor' educational program continues in the Zhigansky subdivision.

About program

Yakutia has adopted a plan for training and development of personnel in the Arctic to cut the migration flow and increase employment in the northern regions known for a high level of unemployment due to fewer jobs in agriculture, the discrepancy between the applicants' skills and the requirements for vacant positions, and a lack of professional skills in the population.

About Center

The Arctic Training Center was established in March 2020 as a merger of professional training centers in Yakutia's three Arctic districts - the Verkhoyansky, Zhigansky and Tiksinsky. The center implements training projects and a social project to train the unemployed youth. The center's head office is in the village of Tiksi, the Bulunsky District.

The center's teachers work in the region's nine Arctic districts. Since 2020, the center has trained 855 people under 24 programs and advanced training courses. The center plans to attract more students to short-term programs, to train pre-retirees, the unemployed, women taking care of babies, as well as secondary school undergraduates.

Yakutia's First Deputy Minister of Education and Science Mikhail Prisyazhny said that the region would buy in 2023 equipment for the center's units in three Arctic districts, and specialists would be trained to work at six modern workshops to implement the social development plans in the Far East.

The Verkhoyansky District will invite students to study 'Buldozer Driving' and 'Network and System Administration.' The Zhigansky District's new workshops will be used to teach fashion and photography technologies, and in Tiksi students will learn how to operate unmanned aircraft systems, and how to repair passenger cars.