Pobyeda LSR sets up a school of stonemasons

The Pobyeda LSR Combine is continuing to implement its own unique project — a Stonemasons’ School, which is designed to provide qualified training for skilled stonemasons in St. Petersburg. And specific results have already been obtained — over the last year and a half, several vocational colleges have re-introduced stonemason courses. But at the same time as successes have been recorded in the half-forgotten stonemason courses, a whole lot of new problems have arisen, the most relevant of which is the shortage of places for the practical training of these future bricklayers. This theme was touched upon at a recent conference of the St. Petersburg Education Committee.

The conference was attended by representatives of the North West Building Complex Association, and from vocational institutions and companies that produce building materials. All participants at the conference were agreed that the training of highly-qualified workmen for the building industry was impossible without providing practical experience. Representatives of the technical colleges were quite certain that the opportunity of doing real work at a building site would increase the effectiveness of training many times over. But, in their words, the building companies prefer to take on either trained qualified staff or, in pursuit of economic advantage, a foreign workforce. Students are not taken on willingly and, if they are given work, they — the future specialists — are given no opportunity for honing their practical skills and are basically used as ancillary workers.

Those attending the conference appealed to the North West Building Complex Association to draw the attention of the building company managers to this problem and also to provide help in organizing and holding various kinds of games and competitions for students. ZAO Pobyeda LSR specialists put forward for the examination of all interested parties a draft programme aimed at creating long-term partnership relations between vocational schools and colleges, on the one hand, and the building companies, on the other, and at organizing a training system for stonemasons that is as much in line as possible with present and future market demands. In the words of Sergei Solovyov, aide to the manager of ZAO Pobyeda LSR, within the framework of this programme the company has carried out a series of measures over the last year and a half aimed at providing comprehensive support for the educational institutions that are renewing stonemason training courses. The brick combine is running vocationally organized campaigns among young people to get them attracted to the idea of training as stonemasons. These campaigns include organizing excursions to factories and providing future stonemasons with books, posters, learning aides and films.