Diversity of ethnic and religious groups is Russia's wealth, but it complicates system of public administration

A professional standard for specialists in the field of inter-ethnic relations can be created in Russia. The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) developed such a professional standard on the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation, with the assistance of the Federal Agency for Nationalities and sent it to the Labour Ministry.

As the member of the Commission on Improving Legislation and Law Enforcement Practice of the Presidential Council on Interethnic Relations, Director of the Institute of Public Administration and Civil Service of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (IPACS RANEPA) Igor Bartsits explained, "we survived the destruction of the state because we could not cope with the national question". "The diversity of ethnic and religious groups is our wealth, culture, it is our dignity. But these factors complicate the system of state administration. Traditional mechanisms of democracy, the wonderful achievements of world political science, often do not work in our society, in our country precisely because of the historical complexity of diversity. It should be taught at the managerial level, we need to draw attention to it starting with the educational programs is schools and universities," Igor Bartsits said.

According to him, there should be special standards for training specialists on such a complex and delicate topic: "There must be management mechanisms, political and legal mechanisms. Even mass social psychological issues, the ability to communicate in the audience, understand who is in front of you. It would be better to express the same point of view differently in Moscow, Makhachkala, Tyva or Yakutsk. "

Chairperson of the Council of the Assembly of the Peoples of Russia, Svetlana Smirnova, is convinced that the creation of a professional standard will be the stage in building a coherent system for the implementation of Russia's national policy: "A strategy for the state national policy of the Russian Federation has been developed and adopted, a state agency, the Federal Agency for Nationalities, has been created, a state program has been adopted. Now it's important to work in the sphere of national relations qualitatively and professionally. The demand for this standard is evidenced by the response received by us from the regional branches of the Assembly of the Peoples of Russia, from regional public organizations. If the Assembly of the Peoples of Russia, our partners in the federal national-cultural autonomies will have such specialists possessing these competencies and knowledge, it will really increase the level of national policy in our country. It is important for higher education institutions to train such specialists. Our task is to unite the peoples of the Russian Federation and strengthen friendship between nations. "

Deputy Head of the Education State Policy department at the Russian Ministry of Education and Science, Sergei Pilipenko, said that work on creating the basis for the training of such specialists has been started quite a long time ago, but it was fixed by the decision of the Russian President's Council on Interethnic Relations in 2014,  when it was decided to create ethnology, ethnopolitology and ethnoculturology departments in leading universities. "To date, such base has been created in the RANEPA. It was tasked with creating and developing a professional standard. In 2015, amendments were made to Federal Law 273 'On Education in the Russian Federation', which states that the federal state educational standard, its actualization, its development, in the case of a new standard, is carried out on the basis of the requirements of professional standards. As soon as the professional standard is approved and registered in the Ministry of Justice, then they have one year to amend the relevant federal state educational standards," Pylypenko said.

However, according to him, there is no such training that would fully cover this professional standard. "There are at least 15 federal state educational standards linked to a professional standard, there are 15 areas of training, in particular, religious studies, theology, sociology, cultural studies ... Now there is a very large and serious work underway, I believe that we will make a high-quality federal state educational standard through joint efforts".