Siberian Federal University: Snoword Project introduced to Indigenous Peoples of the North
On 8 September 2021, Siberian Federal University hosted a round-table discussion on the cooperation of industrial enterprises and indigenous peoples in places of their traditional residence. Artyom Shakhmatov, a leading specialist in educational and scientific relations (SibFU), reported on the educational solutions that the university provides for the indigenous peoples of the North.
Mr Shakhmatov presented Snoword educational online platformб a unique project which will provide opportunities for the representatives of small-numbered peoples who study their native languages and culture to undergo distance training courses. For schoolchildren, there are pre-university training programs, and students and graduates can take professional retraining courses. For the moment, there are 16 online courses on general and northern studies, medicine, education, and agriculture. The full list of training programs is available on the web.
“Working with the indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North is an integral part of the scientific and educational agenda of Siberian Federal University, which, in turn, is the centre of fundamental and applied ethnological, regional studies, socio-anthropological, linguistic, historical, cultural, and pedagogical research of indigenous small-numbered peoples. Our task is to contribute to an increase in the number of highly qualified specialists from among the indigenous minorities for the development of the northern and Arctic territories, as well as to ensure the preservation and reproduction of languages and the unique cultural heritage of these peoples,” noted Artyom Shakhmatov.
The registration on the web is open now, and the start of the application campaign will be announced soon. The training is free of charge.
The project is implemented within the state assignment of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation to work on the Implementation of measures aimed at providing additional social support to the indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation, enrolled to Russian educational institutions of higher education for programs on the study of the languages and cultures of these peoples.