(To correct in the last paragraph of Friday's article at 18.23 p.m. from nine years to nine months of training…..)
NOVOSIBIRSK. Feb 3 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Defense Ministry has created an interdepartmental working group to discuss the introduction of military service by conscription in military departments of Russian universities on September 1, 2014. The first meeting of the group will take place in early February, Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov said on Friday.
"We invite rectors and the Education Ministry to work with us closely. We are creating an interdepartmental working group and the first working meeting of this group will take place next week. We will study all problems closely together with you," Pankov said while meeting with rectors of universities in Novosibirsk.
Defense Ministry officials met with representatives of Siberian universities, including rectors, faculty members, and students, in Novosibirsk on January 31. The meeting lasted for two hours.
Some meeting participants suggested including in the Defense Ministry working group a representative of Siberian universities and counting students' work in the defense sector as service in the army. Many meeting participants spoke for re-opening military departments in the universities where they were closed.
In December 2013, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu suggested that university students should be allowed to serve in the army in the military departments of their universities beginning on September 1, 2014. There are plans that the nine months of training in a military department will be counted as nine months of military service and such students will have three-month camp training sessions. Such university graduates will receive military tickets when they graduate.