Professional mining education in industrial growth context in the Ural

Abstract

The article discusses the formation and development of mining-related education in the Urals, one of the key regions in the sphere of extracting and processing of exploitable minerals. The current severe shortage of personnel in the mining industry, concerning operational staff, specialists and engineers, in the setting of the ongoing industrial automation, makes the study relevant. This calls for improving the existing personnel training system in the sphere of mining. The history of mining-related educational institutions in the Urals is viewed in relation to the needs of the advancing mining industry. The article provides justifications for the necessity for improving the existing system of personnel training, emphasizing the need to enhance the resources and facilities available to educational institutions, as well as educational forms and methods involving the use of computer technologies. In view of mining personnel shortage, the article suggests intensifying efforts to provide students and young operational staff with career guidance concerning the mining industry. The study employs system analysis and institutional approach as its methodological basis and uses document analysis, as well as historical and comparative methods. The analysis of the mining industry development trends of the foreseeable future allows for concluding that the technologies to be introduced into the mining industry will rely heavily on developing and implementing innovative intellectual solutions and applying integrated automation and robotization of production processes, which will lead to the emersion of unmanned technologies for extraction and processing of exploitable minerals (primarily subsoil assets) and further to a major change in the professional and qualification structure of personnel, as well as to the advent of hybrid professions, comprising features of both traditional and newly-emerging work methods.