Translation. Region: Russian Federal
Source: Government of the Russian Federation – Government of the Russian Federation –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
The Prime Minister toured the exhibition and met with winners and runners-up of national professional skills championships, the "Master of the Year" competition, students, and directors of leading clusters within the federal "Professionalism" project.
The secondary vocational education (SVE) system is the largest educational infrastructure in the country, including 3,200 vocational educational organizations and 376 higher education organizations implementing SVE programs.
In 2025, SPO celebrates its 85th anniversary (on October 2, 1940, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On the State Labor Reserves of the USSR" was adopted, the first schools for factory training, vocational and railway schools for training workers appeared).
Since 2022, October 2, in accordance with the Presidential Decree of July 25, 2022 No. 496, has been officially declared the Day of Secondary Vocational Education.
Secondary vocational education plays a strategic role in the country's development, developing human resources for industry, technology, and social infrastructure. The system employs 199,474 teaching staff, including 147,303 teachers and 18,779 vocational training instructors.
In the 2025/2026 academic year, 1.2 million students were enrolled in secondary vocational education programs. 62.5% of ninth-grade school graduates choose to study in secondary vocational education programs. The total number of students enrolled in all forms of education at the beginning of the academic year exceeded 3.85 million.
In 2025, approximately 1,004,500 people graduated from secondary vocational education programs, and the employment rate of college graduates today reaches 80.5%, indicating the high efficiency of training personnel in line with employer requirements.
To help students in grades 6–11 choose their future profession, a unified career guidance model was introduced in every school starting September 1, 2023, covering more than 8.5 million students and involving 13,400 employers.
A significant change in the secondary vocational education system is the implementation of the federal project "Professionalism" starting in 2022, which provides for the formation of secondary vocational education clusters, as well as a set of measures to modernize the system in the interests of economic and industrial development.
In 2025, 506 clusters across 24 economic sectors will operate in 86 regions, with more than 2,400 employer organizations participating.
To attract internship recipients to the secondary vocational education system, the federal "Professionality" project offers continuing professional education programs for workers returning from production, prize winners, and winners of professional skills championships. More than 2,200 students have already completed this training.
A significant development mechanism for the secondary vocational education system is the professional skills championship movement, which includes:
— high technology championship;
— championship in professional skills “Professionals”;
— championship in professional skills among disabled people and people with limited health capabilities "Abilympics".
A new initiative is the Abilympics Professional Skills Championship, a series of events held at the federal level that includes competency-based competitions, professional skills tests, business, cultural, and other events among disabled SVO participants.
In 2025, the professional skills championships will reach over 1 million people, including over 330,000 college students and schoolchildren aged 14 and older. The championship movement is supported by over 7,500 employers.
The All-Russian competition for teachers in the secondary vocational education system, "Master of the Year," has been held since 2021 to reward teachers, enhance the prestige of the teaching profession, promote cutting-edge ideas in education and training, and study and implement best teaching practices.
In 2025, 9,831 teaching staff took part in the competition, with 89 teachers from all constituent entities of the Federation participating in the final stage.
The competition finals will take place from September 29 to October 2 in Kursk, the hometown of the 2024 winner, Dmitry Medvedev, director of the Kursk College of Information Technology.
From the transcript:
M. Mishustin: Good afternoon, dear friends!
First of all, I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate you, your colleagues, all the students, and all the faculty on the anniversary of the secondary vocational education system. Three years ago, the President proposed celebrating SVE Day. I hope it has already become a good tradition for you.
The secondary vocational education system trains specialists without whom no economic or industrial sector can develop. We just saw at the exhibition what a difficult journey the vocational education system has traveled over the past 85 years. I already said today, greeting the students at the "Master of the Year" competition, that, of course, there is no such thing as a secondary education system. These systems, I believe, are vestiges of the past, the 1990s. Part of today's exhibition was dedicated to that period.
College graduates now receive an excellent education—a professional education that the country needs. It's an education that enables young people to develop, to build the country's industrial and economic shield, and to help achieve the national development goals set by the President.
Today, our country has over 3,200 colleges, attended by approximately 4 million young people. They offer careers in any of 500 specialties across all key economic sectors. Incidentally, today's exhibit showcased professions that were once offered through the secondary vocational education system in the Soviet Union. These are completely different professions from different sectors of the economy. Today, you can also obtain a wide variety of professions—from modern specialties in information technology, software development, and nuclear energy to medicine, education, and more.
To be continued.
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