The following tasks are solved by the educational activities of the Association: to develop humanitarian aspects in engineering and technical education; by joint efforts of the scientific and educational community, aim students at universal human moral and cultural values; popularize and disclose the achievements of scientific and technical process; support the initiatives of young people and students; distribute the Association’s publications; promote the cooperation between museums and university libraries.
In humanities the leading place belongs to history, which is one of the main tools of fostering patriotism, a sense of national self-awareness and public spirit. A higher educational institution should not only give professional knowledge to students, but also educate and bring them up. In celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 the collections of articles «Memory of the Great Victory» were published, which reflected the participation of universities, scientists, teachers and students in historical events of the past years, as well as the contribution of all diverse Soviet people to the Great Victory. The work in this field is going on.
At present, there is a growing interest to gifted children and young people, and the problem of unlocking and developing their abilities and creativity is becoming increasingly important. The universities of the Association provide all necessary conditions to identify gifted schoolchildren and students, fully develop and raise creative personalities giving them psychological and pedagogical support.
The Association has accumulated a huge unique experience of selecting and working with gifted schoolchildren in specialized schools and classes, such as physical and mathematical schools, cosmonautics popularization programs, etc. Moreover, large-scale events are regularly held: exhibitions, conferences, seminars, intellectual academic competitions and contests. The purpose of these events is to search for talented vocationally-orientated youth so that they could proceed with their training at universities.
The personality becoming of gifted children should take place in a special environment, the one where science is the major. It is impossible to imagine the talent sustainability without scientists, specialists in psychology, who help university teachers to develop methods and recommendations for the work with gifted children.
On September 28, 2017, the Technical Universities Association together with Moscow Psychological Society held the All-Russian Conference «Giftedness: Methods of Identification and Ways of Development».
The purpose of the Conference was to analyze, summarize and evaluate the experience in the field of identifying talent, trends and technologies for its development, as well as the risks in psychological and pedagogical work to unlock and support giftedness in children.
The conference proceedings include a number of scientific articles reflecting the experience of universities in this field.
Since these activities of the Association are very important and due to the large experience gained in career guidance, as well as in search and selection of talented young people, the Association is planning to hold a wide-ranging Scientific and Practical Conference of Higher Educational Institutions «Search and Development of Creative Persons in Engineering Education». We are also collecting scientific and methodological articles reflecting the best practice, research and development of teachers, psychologists, and specialists of the universities of the Association. The articles are expected to be the part of a new interuniversity collection.
The Association provides support to Russia’s largest scientific and social program «Step into the Future», whose goal is to screen the most talented, well-trained and vocationally oriented youth and involve them in university education, create conditions for the full development and fostering of the individual’s creative personality, the gradual formation of professional competences and life-long education ability.
The Association supports the student movement and initiatives, research works of young scientists, schoolchildren, promotes youth forums and conferences, encourages winners of Olimpiads, competitions on problems of science and technology.
Among the past events it is worth pointing out the festival movement «Serebryanaya Zvezda» («The Silver Star»). It was the festival-competition of children and youth creativity «We Say Thank You».
The important events included the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Russian Technical Society. In April 2016 we held a joint meeting of the Presidium of the Coordination Council of the Russian Union of Scientific and Engineering Public Associations, the Bureau of the Council of the International Union of Research Organizations and the Council of the Technical Universities Association on the topic «The Role of the Scientific and Technical Community in Scientific and Technological Development of the Country». The representatives of scientific and technical societies, regional structures, i.e. members of unions, scientific and pedagogical community, rectors of technical universities, heads of associations of universities took part in the meeting.
In 2017, in the year of ecology in Russia, we held an international scientific and practical Internet conference dedicated to the problems of environmental education and environmental culture in technical universities. The representatives of a number of leading technical universities, the CIS members, took part in it. Donbas State Technical University held the 5th All-Russian Conference of Universities Heads of Departments on life safety and environmental protection.
We have already prepared an information and analytical collection of articles «Environmental Education and Environmental Protection». It consists of 2 parts and reflects the most significant events in the field of international interuniversity cooperation in the field of ecology and environmental protection, the results of practical activities and the contribution of the universities of the Association to the solution of the problems of ecological education and ecological culture, training and education of specialists.
The scientific and practical conference «Slavic Culture in Europe — Traditions, Present, Future» held together with Bulgarian colleagues through the space bridge and supported by the Technical Universities Association should be especially noted. The Internet bridge connected Moscow and Sofia, where the participants gathered at the University of Library Studies and Information Technologies, and Russian participants at Bauman University. The conference was arranged to coincide with the Day of Slavic Literature and Culture.
It is becoming a good tradition to hold the «Telezachet» film festival, which is organized for young people to popularize Russian science, culture, fostering of patriotism. The festival helps to find talented young authors working in the field of cinema and television, and to attract public attention to their work.
The main prize of the 3rd Festival was awarded to the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics for the film «50 years of BSUIR».
The problem of patriotic upbringing has become particularly important nowadays. The priorities of the educational policy are love for the Motherland, a sense of responsibility for the fate of Russia, a willingness to protect it, teaching the younger generation rules and regularities of behaving in the society. Today graduates of Russian universities actively participate in public life of the country. The Association has published collections of scientific articles entitled «Value Transformations of Modern Russian Youth and CIS States». They include articles on the problems of humanitarian education in training engineers and scientists, the development of not only knowledge, skills, professional competencies but also a common culture, high moral values, such personal qualities as civic maturity, patriotism, responsibility for the fate of the country.
The publishing activity plays a very important part. A number of books have been written and published. Historical aspects of reforming the system of general and vocational education in Russia are dealt with in the book «On the Reform of Engineering Education» published on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the report to the meeting of the Polytechnic Society on January 17, 1915. Its author, Professor V.I. Grinevetsky, was the rector of the Imperial Technical School. Another example is the book by an ascetic and scholar Petr Dmitrievich Krutko «Essays on the History of Higher Technical Education».
