Zhanna V. Smirnova

The relevance of this study is driven by the strategic imperative of ensuring Russia’s technological sovereignty and addressing the acute shortage of skilled personnel in high-tech industries, necessitating fundamental rethinking of approaches to youth professional self-determination. Within the secondary vocational education (SVE) system, a significant gap persists between the competences developed in graduates and the current demands of employers. Furthermore, traditional career guidance practices fail to foster a sustained value-based orientation toward engineering labor and technological entrepreneurship. The aim of this study is to theoretically substantiate and develop a graduate profile for engineering and technological SVE programs, positioning it as the value-driven and goal-oriented foundation for career guidance initiatives. The methodological framework draws on a situational-positional model of professional development and an age-normative developmental concept, both of which frame professional self-determination as a phased progression through stages of problematization, instrumental problem solving, and professional validation. Drawing on comprehensive empirical research, the SVE graduate profile has been operationalized, a three-component diagnostic readiness profile has been developed, and a situational-positional career guidance model has been proposed. This model integrates technopark infrastructure with a collaborative cluster encompassing schools, SVE institutions, universities, and industry partners. The study details four mechanisms for integrating this graduate profile into the educational process: diagnostic-orienting, design-oriented, reflexive-evaluative, and communicative-partnership. The theoretical and practical significance of this research lies in its scientific conceptualization of the SVE graduate profile not as a static competency checklist, but as a dynamic value-goal matrix that dictates the content and direction of career guidance. The proposed models, descriptor system, and diagnostic toolkit demonstrate strong potential for implementation across SVE institutions, technoparks, and regional administrative bodies. They facilitate the alignment of educational programs with industry standards, enhance student motivation for engineering careers, and improve graduate competitiveness in the labor market. The effectiveness of these approaches has been validated through successful pilot implementation in educational institutions across the Nizhny Novgorod Region.

Modern conditions of the rapidly developing labor market dictate the need to improve the competitiveness of secondary vocational education (SVE) institutions’ graduates. The main problem in the training of future specialists is the insufficient level of practical training in the context of rapidly developing and changing technologies. The solution to this problem requires an integrated approach to modernizing the educational process in educational institutions, as well as developing partnerships with direct industrial employers. Such innovative spaces as technology parks are becoming the most important element of the educational system infrastructure and can play a key role in the development of professional training of highly qualified specialists necessary for the modern economy. The problem of the research is to study the potential and conditions for implementing a partnership between the secondary vocational education system and the vocational education technology park to improve the effectiveness of students’ professional training and ensure their competitiveness in the labor market. The aim of the study is to determine and substantiate a model of professional training for SVE students in partnership with the vocational education technology park of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, aimed at increasing their competitiveness in the labor market and ensuring compliance with the requirements of the innovative economy. In the process of studying the problem, the authors made an analysis of the conditions necessary for the effective implementation of professional training for students of secondary vocational education in the framework of partnership with the technopark of vocational education. As a result of observation, monitoring and analysis of the technoparks activities in the Nizhny Novgorod region in the field of studying the potential of the sites provided by technoparks, they identified the specific features of the partnership between vocational education institutions and the technopark of vocational education, the factors influencing the effectiveness of professional training for students of vocational education in the conditions of this technopark. The analysis of the monitoring results showed insufficient integration of the vocational education technopark into the educational process aimed at training personnel capable of carrying out both pedagogical and engineering activities. To solve the problem, a model of professional training for students of secondary vocational educational institutions in partnership with the technopark was developed. The developed model of professional training for students of vocational education in partnership with the vocational education technopark is aimed at creating an effective education system that will ensure the training of necessary specialists capable of successfully integrating into the modern labor market.