Development of Universal Skills at the Russian Universities: Challenges and Experience

Abstract

Rapid technological development and digital transformation in all areas of life have resulted in a dramatic change in the nature of thinking and requirements to skills. In the information economy, it is not money or natural resources, or territory but people with their critical thinking and high-quality skills, who have become a valuable asset. In this regard, the educational sector advances to the forefront. However, education hardly complies with the requirements of the new economy and retains its basic features of the industrial era. The curricula and educational processes at universities fail to prepare young people for life in our complicated world, or develop critical thinking; they discourage creativity and ability to cooperate. Curricula tend to focus on the development of professional skills and neglect the development of social and cognitive skills. The study sets out to investigate the usefulness of higher social and cognitive skills in the educational process at the Faculty of Humanities in Perm National Research Polytechnic University and offers recommendations on the development of these skills in the educational process.

How Intellectual Capital Predicts Innovation Output in EU Regions: Implications for Sustainable Development

“…For example, the higher number of graduates requires larger class sizes, which are shown to have a negative impact on students [67] and may thus result in less competent graduates, who have a weaker impact on innovation output. Alternatively, it could be due to the fact that, as modern university curricula become more "technical" and more focused on professional skills, they neglect the development of cognitive and social skills, such as critical thinking [68]. Or, it could be connected with the fact that some of the organisations which hire highly educated people have high formalisation and centralisation, which are negatively correlated with empowerment and stifle the innovative behaviours of employees [69].…”