Rector of the Higher school of economics Yaroslav Kuzminov delivers lecture at Tatarstan Government House

On October 17, at Tatarstan Government House, Rector of the National research university “Higher school of economics” Yaroslav Kuzminov delivered a lecture “Human capital as the resource of Russia’s development in the mid-term and long-term”.

Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov thanked Yaroslav Kuzminov for the visit noting that Tatarstan actively cooperates with the Higher school of economics in certain areas.

According to Kuzminov, Russia is searching for new sources of economic growth, therefore the demand for human capital and human competences that often determine the quality of a company in any sphere is increasing, especially where there is no natural resource rent. Besides, people make up a creative component if any economic sector.

The lecturer emphasized that there are three industries forming the human potential, - education and culture invest into the quality of human capital, health care, ecology and services work for quantity, not quality, pension and social care create incentives for further work.

The rector also informed that Russia is among 20 per cent of countries along with Canada, Japan, Austria and Poland with maximum level of average expected length of education. He believes that the key problem of reproduction of the human capital in Russia is insufficient funding of two main spheres – health care and education, which leads to low professional skills and motivation.

The “brain drain” is another problematic issue. About half a million specialists have left Russia over the last 3-4 years. This problem should not be solved in a radical way, for example by closing the borders, he said.