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TMK and Sinara Charitable Foundation scale up Tochka Opory career guidance project

TMK’s Pervouralsk Pipe Plant (PNTZ) and the administration of the Pervouralsk municipality have signed a cooperation agreement to jointly run Tochka Opory (Foothold), a career guidance project by TMK and the corporate Sinara Charitable Foundation. The agreement for cooperating on early career guidance and creating conditions for lifelong learning was signed by Vladimir Toporov, Managing Director of PNTZ, and Igor Kabets, Mayor of Pervouralsk.

The Tochka Opory project will be rolled out at PNTZ-sponsored schools in Pervouralsk. Under the agreement, the plant will organize educational and research activities and projects, career guidance advice for students and parents, plant-based lessons, essay and drawing contests dedicated to various occupations, the Bilet v Professiyu (Ticket to Vocation) television reality show, a contest for outreach teams, a game show, the Career Quest, the Professional Guidance workshops, and shop-floor tours to production sites.                                                                                            

The plant employees will assist school students in choosing their career and encourage them to study technical subjects.

Vladimir Toporov said: “PNTZ has many years of experience in practice-oriented education and is interested in training highly skilled professionals who can quickly adapt to new economic needs, develop R&D-intensive technologies and deploy digital solutions. This process should start at school, and our goal is to raise the prestige of blue-collar jobs and engineering careers among children. PNTZ will support interested children at all education stages and provide them with decent and exciting jobs in the future.”

Igor Kabets commented: “The social and economic development of Pervouralsk as a major industrial hub of the region directly relies on the operation of production enterprises. By cooperating with TMK’s PNTZ, the city’s backbone plant, we effectively tackle many tasks that are important to the city and its residents. One of them is training and employment of skilled workforce, including in the pipe industry. By signing a cooperation agreement on career guidance activities in city schools, we have made another important step in this direction.”

The Tochka Opory career guidance project has been running since 2013 in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Volzhsky, Kaluga, Kamensk-Uralsky, Kurgan, Lyudinovo, Pervouralsk, Polevskoy, Orsk, Taganrog, and Chelyabinsk.

The project aims at raising the status of blue-collar occupations among teenagers, helping school students in choosing their career and upgrading facilities at schools in the regions where TMK and Sinara Group operate.

Engaging with schools is part of TMK’s major efforts undertaken under social partnership agreements in the regions where it operates. For instance, in July 2021, PNTZ signed a social partnership agreement with the administration of Pervouralsk to finance the activities of the Uralsky Trubnik children’s and youth sports school as well as the Uralsky Trubnik hockey club and local junior teams, supporting a New Year charity marathon for children from low-income families, staging the Production as Art theatrical performances for the city residents, delivering a street art project about environmental protection, and holding other activities.