08 October 2003 13:15
Russian military education review includes commercial sponsorship for cadets
The Russian Ministry of Defence funds an early-morning "Radio Slavyanka" broadcast six days a week on Radio
Russia, under the title "I serve the country". The strand has featured the start of scholarships for promising
students at the military higher education establishments granted by tycoon Vladimir Potanin's own charitable
foundation. Attending the awards ceremony for the first recipients of grants, Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov said this
is part of a general review of higher military education, which may include placing military faculties in otherwise
civilian institutions, and tightening up contracts with students to ensure they move on from education in military
establishments into a military career. The following is an excerpt from the report by Radio Russia on 27 September:
[Presenter] In today's programme you'll hear a report on charitable works at the military university of the
Ministry of Defence. Here is our correspondent Denis Tkachenko with the details.
[Correspondent] This week the military university of the Russian Ministry of Defence held a formal awards ceremony
for the first students at the military higher education establishments to win scholarships from the Vladimir Potanin
charitable foundation. Russian Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov, Interros president Vladimir Potanin and other top
military officers attended.
The scholarship programme for students at the higher military education establishments is a new project for Vladimir
Potanin's charitable foundation being organized in conjunction with the Ministry of Defence and covers all the
higher military education establishments. This academic year 200 future officers have received scholarships from the
foundation. Some 400 students from military colleges in the Moscow and Leningrad Military Districts competed for the
scholarships. Of these, 114 won scholarships.
The competition took the form of role-play designed to identify the leadership potential of those taking part. The
winners were the students demonstrating leadership qualities, good organizational skills and the ability to think
laterally. The president of the Interros company, Vladimir Potanin, talked about his aims and prospects.
[Potanin] The aim of the project is very simple. Officers have always been the elite of our society and Russia has
always taken pride in its officer traditions. This programme, which started off several years ago in civilian life, has
now reached the military. Our charitable activity is based on one idea, a desire to help the students, help the people
who need it and nothing more.
[Passage omitted: Oleg (?Kirichuk), a sponsored student from the Popov naval radio and electronics institute, says
how pleased he is and looks forward to hard work ahead.]
[Correspondent] Before long these students will be officers. However, how is the problem of staffing entry-level
officer posts to be resolved? That was one of the things Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov talked about.
[Ivanov] It is not just that we have a shortage of officers in entry-level posts, we are also taking a new look at
the system of military education. We are starting from the premise that first and foremost we need well-trained military
personnel, and not broadly-skilled specialists as was the case several years ago when we had, for example, guided
weapons specialists with the Strategic Missile Troops spending as much as 65-70 per cent of their time on civilian
discipline. That's not right, either, it is a distortion.
As for agreeing contracts, yes, we want to tighten up contracts with students completing their studies a bit, because
it does happen that we do get cases of some students, not all, of course, going to higher military educational
establishments not intending to become officers, but, as the young people say nowadays, to slip through the army, to get
a state grant three or four times greater than in civilian life. Then imagine a different situation, ironically, in
which a student who has effectively graduated as a lieutenant following four years of study, and I would emphasize that
this is study not service, who lives in a big city with his parents, well provided for, then finds himself somewhere on
Kamchatka and is up against perfectly understandable difficulties. There's pay, cash allowances, relations. In
order to make things fairer for officers, we have made some proposals and have changed the wording of the contract.
At the same time we are now carrying out reform of military education as a whole and we are very seriously
considering the possibility of training highly-qualified officers at military faculties within civilian education
establishments.
[Correspondent] From this month students at military higher education establishments will be getting their
scholarships from Vladimir Potanin's charitable foundation. We hope that the scholarship programme will help to
raise the prestige of a higher military education and support talented and skilled young people who have chosen a
military career.
[Radio Russia] |
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