Dr.Hab., Professor L.B. Andryushchenko¹
Dr.Hab., Professor S.I. Filimonova¹
Dr.Hab., Associate Professor M.O. Aksenov¹
Dr.Biol., Associate Professor V.N. Pushkina^1
1Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow

Keywords: physical education specialist training in Russia, physical education, mission, progress strategy

Background. The National Socio-economic Progress Forecast for the period up to 2030 underlines the need for a flexible and diverse vocational education system sensitive to the labor market demands and economic progress goals and supported by sound financial and technical provisions. This policy has been pursued by the national education system including our university, with the academic Physical Education Departments giving a growing priority to the efforts to cultivate global health values and individual health agendas in student communities. These goals are facilitated by the relevant strategic progress plans traditional for the education service management practice, with the strategic planning expected to harmonize the best education service management models with the university management intuition and practical experience for the faculty service being efficient and effective.

Objective of the study was to develop physical education policies for an economics university and analyze the institutional and practical provisions for their implementation in practice.

Methods and structure of the study. Presently Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow reports 3,278 students being trained in the regular academic physical education groups and 6,940 students in the academic elective physical education and sports groups (n= 10,218 in total); and 172 students qualified with the Special Health Groups (SHG). The first-year academic physical education service includes 28 and 44 hours of theoretical and practical trainings, respectively, rated by 2 credits. The physical education and sports lectures and workshops are run by the top-professional faculty members using modern multimedia tools, with the increasingly popular academic research conferences, research projects driven studies and computerized academic progress tests. The 1-3-year elective physical education and sports service takes 328 hours with practical trainings and master classes. The faculty service in the academic year of 2018-19 was reported to total 71, 640.60 hours. Pursuant to the valid policies of the Russian government for the physical education and sports sector, the Physical Education Department has formulated its physical education and sport service mission that is to secure excellent health culture and health competences for the students to facilitate their professional service based on traditional and modern innovative health, sporting and IT technologies and physical progress/ health test systems.

Results and discussion. For success of the above physical education and sport service mission, the Physical Education Department formulated its service policies with the relevant institutional and practical provisions including:

1. Highly experienced and competent faculty and service personnel currently reported to include 82 faculty members aged 45 years on average, with the young personnel and Masters of Sports making up 39% and 35% of the total personnel. The Physical Education Department management takes efforts to recruit young professional PhDs and Doctors. For the year of 2018, the faculty grew by one Doctor and one PhD; one member completed his post-graduate study; and 8 people ran post-graduate and candidate studies.

2. Practical provisions and assets for the quality education service have always been central for the Physical Education Department faculty taking persistent efforts to put the service on a sound modern basis. Thus in 2018 the Physical Education department published the following theoretical and practical teaching aids and manuals: ‘Physical Education: Fitness’; ‘Health aerobics in professional physical education bachelor training’; ‘Recreation service competences in the professional physical education bachelor training’; and ‘Industrial gymnastics customizable to the service specifics’. The Physical Education Department faculty actively develops the digital education systems, with the academics uploading their master classes on Instagram and Google Classroom with the relevant education tools for students, and with the real-time communication formats. 14 Physical Education Department faculty members have got State Certificates for their databases implemented in the academic education curricula. In the practical training domain, the faculty applies interactive lectures, role games, discussions, job simulation trainings with negotiations, meetings, telephone contacts etc.; mini-presentations, reports etc. The faculty plans to publish a few modular training textbooks and deliver bilingual lectures; increase the share of interactive education forms; produce video master classes of sport disciplines and fitness technologies; and expand the range of the remote education technology applications.

3. Innovative research to advance the academic research schools with the following priority research topics:

– Special education service to train students for the physical education and sport service advancement domain;

– Modern physical education and sports for the individual progress facilitation purposes;

– Weightlifters’ training systems customizable to the individual genetic predispositions;

– Chrono-biological functionality transformations in students residing in the Sub-Polar areas;

– Molecular-genetic markers of the individual physical qualities.

The physical education and sports faculty has set the following priority topics for the academic research projects with due contribution from the interdisciplinary cooperation network:

Doping intolerance culture building projects. On November 30, 2018, the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics signed a cooperation agreement with the RUSADA to implement a variety of joint anti-doping education and public awareness projects; and establish platforms for the research, theoretical and practical provisions for the doping control policies and practices in the Russian Federation. The Physical Education Department faculty members have been trained on the ‘Sport Ethics: Key Aspects of Anti-doping Service’ courses sponsored by the RUSADA and qualified for the educational service at the Anti-doping Provisions for Sports advanced education courses.

Sport reserve training system improvement projects in the following fields: genetic typing; ‘new genes’ (gifted athletes’) search project; Miostatine gene research project; new DNA research methods (CRISPR-cas9; study of metabolites; sequencing); and fitness tests.

International cooperation projects to engage foreign students and leading scientists in the education and research projects, grant initiatives and congresses to produce research articles, monographs registered by the Scopus and Web of Science (Q1/ Q2) databases. A special priority is given to the Physical Education And Sports Research and Health Lab project; target research ‘Senior Generation’, ‘Sport as a Life Norm’ and ‘Public Health Improvement’ projects under the National Project Network at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics; picked university teams building efforts; annual International Research Conference ‘Physical education and sports and tourism: innovation projects and advanced practices’ hosted by the Physical Education Department etc.

The Physical Education Department has reported progress in the publishing activity, with 135 study reports published in 2018-2019 and registered by RISC including 3 monographs, 106 articles published by the RAC-recommended journals; 48 articles registered by Scopus; 4 articles registered by the Web of Science (Q¹); and 3 databases registered by the Russian Patenting Agency. Furthermore, the Physical Education Department has been successful in implementing for the fifth year the student Sport Science Project, with more than 3,000 students contributing to the ongoing physical education and sports research activity as demonstrated by the growing numbers of the students’ publications.

4. International cooperation of the Physical Education Department is run as provided by the University Development Program along the following lines: contributions to the high-ranking international conferences; publications in the international research journals registered by Scopus and Web of Science (Q1 Q2); and lectures at foreign universities. Further progress in this domain is secured by the following: theoretical and practical support for the academic athletes competing in the international student events sponsored by the FISU, European university competitions and World University Games; lectures and master classes at partner foreign universities; contractual services of foreign academics; joint projects in sports genetics studies and anti-doping technologies etc.

5. Commercial projects of the Physical Education Department include the following advanced training courses: ‘Conceptual basics for the academic physical education and sports service’; ‘Doping control in sports’; ‘Modern sport selections in different aspects’; ‘First aid basics’ etc. The advanced education service program was reported to generate 102.51% and 217.75% more revenues than planned for 2018 and 2019, respectively, with the total revenues for the two years reported at RR 4 million.

6. Expert services and imaging campaigns are driven by the understanding that it is the team leaders contributing in many agencies and social groups that form and improve the public image of Plekhanov Russian University of Economics and its theoretical and practical accomplishments in the innovations, education service and sports: see Figure 1 hereunder.

Figure 1. Agencies and bodies contributed by the Plekhanov Plekhanov Russian University of Economics faculty

Conclusion. The study data and analyses give grounds to conclude that the academic physical education service quality at university of economics may be improved by the target initiatives to: advance the professional competences and skills of the faculty; improve the innovative domain of the ongoing research and practical activity; harmonize the academic class and off-class education service formats with due contribution from the commercial services to secure progress of the academic Physical Education Department service and role.7. Health programs are designed, among other things, to advance the Corporate Health Project with its local academic competitions facilitated by the digital technologies of the Russian ONETRAK company; and a range of traditional physical education / health projects including ‘Health Week at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics’, ‘Plekhanov’s Ski Track’, ‘Plekhanov’s Cross-country Race’, ‘Rector’s Football Cup’ etc.

References

1. Alfiya R. Masalimova,  Mikhail N. Mikhaylovsky, Aleksandr V. Grinenko,  Lilia B. Andryushchenko, Marina E. Smirnova,  Mariya A. Kochkina,  Igor G. Kochetkov. The Interrelation be-tween Cognitive Styles and Copying Strategies among Student Youth. EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education. 4/2019 vol. 15.
2. Andryushchenko L.B., Filimonova S.I. Physical Education And Academic Sports In New Socio-Economic National Situation: Modern Vision And Growth Points. Theory and Practice of Physical Culture. 2018. No. 2. p. 23.
3. Filimonova S.I., Andryushchenko L.B., Averyasova Y.O., Filimonova Y.B. Self-Fulfillment Agendas To Improve National Physical Education And Sports Management System. Theory and Practice of Physical Culture. 2018. No. 9. p. 33.

Corresponding author: andryushenko-lil@mail.ru

Abstract

The National Socio-economic Progress Forecast for the period up to 2030 underlines the need for a flexible and diverse vocational education system sensitive to the labor market demands and economic progress goals and supported by sound financial and technical provisions. The study analyzes the Physical Education Department service mission that is to secure excellent health culture and health competences for the students to facilitate their professional service based on traditional and modern innovative health, sporting and IT technologies and physical progress/ health test systems. Furthermore, the study overviews the policies dictated by the physical education service mission and relevant institutional and practical provisions including: highly experienced and competent faculty; practical provisions and assets for the quality education service; innovative research to advance the academic research schools; international cooperation and commercial activity; expert contributions; public advocacy and cultural projects. The study data and analyses give grounds to conclude that the academic physical education service quality at the University of Economics may be improved by the target initiatives to: advance the professional competences and skills of the faculty; improve the innovative domain of the ongoing research and practical activity; harmonize the academic class and off-class education service formats with due contribution from the commercial services to secure progress of the academic Physical Education Department service and role.