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Humanity knows three ways to deal with waste: incineration, burial (landfills) and recycling. All the methods, except reuse and recycle, destroy nature and are dangerous for ecology and human health exactly. Each year Russians produce about 50 million tons solid waste, the most part of which goes to the landfills. National green projects are aimed to create visible eco-friendly system by awarding greenwashing projects with grants: landfills with sorting system, sorting centres without recycling facilities. Therefore, this study is aimed to discover recycling practices execute in Russia and suggest the project of gasification waste plant.

The fact is that the quantity of enrolled students in technical universities does not equal to the number of graduates. According to the Russian statistics, about 1/5th of universities’ students interrupt their studies and do not get diplomas. The reasons of the withdrawal are the following: (1) the accidental reasons such as health problems or changed life circumstances, (2) the personal motives or decisions, (3) the administrative consequences of poor progress of a student. The dropouts from higher education institutions become a big problem for the university, for the society and for the national economy as a whole. The administrative dropouts of students by the reason of their unsatisfactory evaluation are the most often at the first or at the second years of study. The reasons of such dropouts are the subject for the discussion in this paper. The goal of the paper consists in the elaborating of a possible way for the situation improvement by application of the early professional orientation at the stage of high school education. We interviewed 80 students of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd years of study trained on the different engineering specialties in the MADI University. The average assessment of progress of each student added to completed questionnaire provides the possibility to compare his/her professional attitude with academic performance and with the probability of dropout.

In the paper we studied the results of sociological surveys conducted in 2 target groups including representatives of the so called “technical intelligentsia” social stratum - engineers and top-managers employed in industry and scientific research. Both groups are involved in creation and R&D of intellectual products for the development of science and technology. The analysis of respondents approach on the following problems is given herein: attitude to the national scientific and technical policy, skills necessary for professional career, evaluation of personal competences and needs to forge qualification, look into their own knowledge of current regulating documents for educational and technological activities, perception of interconnections between engineering education and the labor market. The needs within target groups are identified by areas of activity and within the framework of educational programs of professional development.

A philosophy glossary says that quality is an attribute or a property. According our common sense, usually we speak about better or worth quality. In both cases, the quality depends on either subjective feelings or objective facts and on the criteria being applied to. We discuss in this paper the term “quality of education” and critically compare different definitions of this specific term. We consider education as a universal public good, entity, determined quality in the philosophical sense. However, the term “quality of education” suppose comparison and assessment or measurement of value and management of quality. Often the quality of study programmes is in use instead of that. Then the theory of total quality management helps to improve quality. Known that assurance is its important part.

This paper discusses the various methodological approaches to the study of the role and place of the technical intelligentsia as a layer of highly educated professionals, both in Russia and abroad.