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MINSK, 22 November (BelTA) – Belarusian university students, who will become nuclear energy industry specialists after graduation, have been given an opportunity to enjoy on-the-job training at the Kalinin nuclear power plant in Udomlya, Tver Oblast, Russia, representatives of the Russian state nuclear industry corporation Rosatom told BelTA.

More than 20 students of the Physics Department of the Belarusian State University have been given the opportunity. It was the third visit of the future nuclear energy specialists to Udomlya this year within the framework of cooperation with leading Belarusian universities.

The students will work at the Belarusian nuclear power plant in the future. They were made familiar with the nuclear power plant in operation and were given some hands-on experience. Experienced instructors of the education and training department of the Kalinin nuclear power plant introduced the Belarusian students to peculiarities of electricity generation using VVER type reactors. The same type of reactors is used to build the Belarusian nuclear power plant. The Belarusian students were made familiar with technical parameters of the equipment, examined the general heat exchange scheme of the nuclear power plant, and spent some time in well-equipped classrooms and a full-scale simulator.

Grigory Khakhulin, Deputy Chief Engineer for Personnel Training, Head of the Education and Training Department of the Kalinin nuclear power plant, noted that training personnel using the full-scale simulator is a vital stage of the education process since the safe operation of a nuclear power plant depends directly on the qualification of the personnel in charge of the central control room. The students had a unique opportunity to receive information from people, who operate the live equipment, and to get intimately familiar with peculiarities of the nuclear power plant’s operation.

On-the-job training is part of the curriculum of nuclear energy industry students at the Belarusian State University. Every student should have an opportunity to have some hands-on experience with a live nuclear power plant in order to be fully ready to work as a specialist of the Belarusian nuclear power plant after graduation.

Viktor Anishchik, Dean of the Physics Department of the Belarusian State University, said: “This field trip was part of the curriculum. Since there are no operational nuclear power plants in Belarus for now, we send our students for on-the-job training to the Russian Federation. These trips are arranged every year. Our guys visit the Ivanovo State Power Engineering University, the Nuclear Energy and Applied Physics Institute in Nizhny Novgorod, the national nuclear research university MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute), nuclear power plants, and other nuclear installations. Due to understandable reasons the students cannot operate live reactors and have to use simulators instead, however, they come back with new experience and with their own understanding of peculiarities of their future jobs.”

On-the-job safety is paid close attention during field trips. A course to study Rosatom’s on-the-job safety practices is now part of the field trips.