Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 28 November (BelTA) – Business should get involved in the effort to develop a national qualifications framework, Belarusian Deputy Labor and Social Protection Minister Alexander Rumak told the media ahead of the international conference of young scientists “Social and labor sphere and demographic development in Belarus” on 28 November, BelTA has learned.

“Belarus is moving towards creating its own national qualifications framework and improving employee performance standards on the basis of current regulations. This refers to catalogues of tariffs and qualifications for occupations and posts existing in our economy,” Alexander Rumak clarified. “The world does not stand still, technologies advance, new manufactures are established. These things create the need to form a national qualifications framework. There have been some pilot projects in several sectors. Now the task is to set up sectoral councils in the main areas of activity,” the deputy minister said. He underlined that business could make a bigger contribution to this process. “In Russia, these processes involve sectoral associations of employers, because business needs it most. Business underlines the need to form characteristics for new manufactures and posts,” Alexander Rumak pointed out.

Speaking about the goals of the conference, he emphasized the need to analyze the situation in and experience of other countries from the standpoint of science. “We should do it to learn to control demographic processes on the level of general trends rather than on the administrative level. In my opinion, young researchers can help work out approaches to be included in the government policy and to be timely adjusted to mitigate negative demographic trends,” Alexander Rumak added.

Timed to the Year of Science in Belarus, the Minsk conference has drawn together over 60 young scientists from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan. At the plenary session, the experts outlined the current situation on and different aspects of the labor market, labor migration, demography, and social sphere in the participating countries. Another speaker will be Manfred Ziewers, an expert in vocational education, training, and labor market in the EU. He is expected to give a report “Demography and lifelong learning” on global trends. Then, the conference will be divided into sections.