The article reveals the main directions of designing organizational and pedagogical support for rural schools in the context of the reform of professional education in the Russian Federation, based on the materials of « Kalmyk State University named after B.B. Gorodovikov», in the process of implementing the project « Scientific and pedagogical support of the teacher of a rural school in the system of continuous higher education». The goal of the project is to implement organizational, managerial, control and diagnostic conditions for the development of the continuous pedagogical education system to provide the population with affordable high-quality education involving the use of innovative, primarily digital network technologies, and the creation of a career guidance system. Project objectives: 1. Development of organizational and pedagogical infrastructure, information base and mobility of the continuous education system in the Republic of Kalmykia. 2. Preparing students in rural schools for a conscious choice of a profession, for obtaining pedagogical specialities. 3. Increasing the volume of the university's participation in the implementation of large-scale and socially significant federal and regional research and educational projects, significant scientific and applied problems. The project aims at increasing the social status and prestige of teacher labor, updating the content and structure of higher pedagogical education through the use of networked educational models; conducting targeted recruitment, creating conditions for rural youth to receive higher pedagogical education; providing the population of the Republic of Kalmykia with affordable high-quality modern education, involving the use of innovative, primarily digital, network technologies; an increase in the average USE score of students enrolled in undergraduate programs in the direction of «Pedagogical Education» is at least 70. The project provides for measures to create «growth points» in rural schools aimed at creating a system for identifying and supporting future teachers striving for self-actualization, self-realization, scientific pedagogical stimulation of improving educational performance, the activities of teachers in rural schools; the activities of the consortium «Evidence-based pedagogy» as the most important resource for the implementation of the priority national project «Education».