Excellence in Engineering Education through Teacher Training and New Pedagogic Approaches in Russia and Tajikistan

The Bologna process and EHEA brought necessary reforms to improve engineering education in Russia and Tajikistan. But despite obvious increase in attractiveness for young people engineering education is still facing many challenges. Drop-out rate among students majoring in engineering is almost 25%, employment rates for bachelor graduates decreases due to unwillingness of industry to employ engineers with 4 years of education, teaching staff is ageing and universities fail to create an effective system to retain young PhD graduates in engineering disciplines to perform teaching and research. One of the major unsolved problems behind these challenges is the deterioration of teacher training system in PC universities and irrelevance of teaching methods employed for engineering disciplines in Russia and Tajikistan. The answer to this problem is two-fold – modernization of pedagogic training of PhD students and development of sustainable system of lifelong education for university teachers of engineering disciplines. EXTEND seeks to promote a change in a system of pedagogic training of university teachers in engineering in RF and TJK through modernization of PhD programs curriculum and development of sustainable system of teacher re-training and consultation support by Network of Centres of Excellence in Engineering Education. The priority aim of the EXTEND project is to enhance the quality and the effectiveness of teaching. The project is targeted at solving of three specific problems: 1)The development of comprehensive model and descriptor of the competences of the university teacher of engineering disciplines;2) The establishment of Network of Centres of Excellence in Engineering Education (EXTEND centres) offering training courses, research and consultations in teaching engineering disciplines in PC HEI. 3) The development of training program for PhD students and university teachers in teaching engineering disciplines including MOOC.