Olga Magomedova, Researcher of the International Best Practices Analysis Department at the Gaidar Institute, told Izvestia, why higher education is losing value in some sectors of the economy and which specialties most often face this problem.
According to the expert, the crisis in higher education is particularly visible in sectors where employers increasingly value practical skills, the ability to quickly retrain, and work experience rather than fundamental theoretical training. This is especially true in the humanities.
"The humanities are the first to be hit. For example, in the tourism sector, we observe a clear 'oversupply' of managers having an overly theoretical understanding of how the industry works, while the industry is experiencing a severe shortage of line personnel, i.e. people who do manual labor. "It is revealing that of the 328 educational institutions training personnel in the field of 'Tourism and Service,' 67.9% are universities, while the remaining 32.1% are secondary vocational education institutions, which are supposed to train so-called blue-collar workers," explained Olga Magomedova.
She noted that the labor market today increasingly demands specialists with applied skills, while the education system continues to focus on producing large numbers of graduates having primarily theoretical training. She believes, this results in an imbalance between employer demands and the training structure.