Specialists’ Environmental Competence as a Factor of Socio-economic Sustainability in Rural Areas

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the relevance of agro-biological and technological specialists’ environmental competence in the system of agricultural education. Theoretical part: we carried out a brief overview of modern research issues in the field of environmental specialists’ labour functions. Empirical part: we collected and analyzed the opinions of 467 people of the graduate year in the students’ target group of agro biological and technological programs. They took part in an online survey based on the results of practical training at enterprises and organizations in the South of Russia. The survey database was processed in the SPSS Statistics program (version 24). We determined that the areas of improving the environmental competence of agro-biological and technological specialists to ensure the socio-economic sustainability of rural areas are: ensuring a high level of theoretical knowledge based on the principles of consistency; inter disciplinarity; continuity and the value of sustainable rural development, which are translated into a methodological complex of all types of practices with the tasks of approbation at enterprises and organizations – strategic partners of universities. The development of institutional mechanisms to increase the interest of strategic partners in high quality organization and internship in agro-biological and technological programs of the university deserves attention.