LocationsInclusive Vocational Education: Opening Paths to a Profession
September 1, 2026
In September, more than 67 thousand recent school graduates began their studies at colleges in Belarus. For each of them, this is the beginning of a professional journey. The role of modern vocational education is to recognize the potential of every young person and create the conditions for that potential to become a professional skill.
This is particularly important for young people with disabilities and special educational needs. UNDP, together with the Ministry of Education, is working to make vocational education more inclusive. This means more than creating an accessible physical environment. It requires trained teachers, flexible learning formats, modern equipment, career guidance and support as students move from education into employment. It also means creating opportunities for young people to demonstrate what they can do.
The VI Republican Professional Skills Competition ProfSkills Belarus, held with the support of UNDP and the Ministry of Education and with financial support from the Russian Federation, brought together around 300 students and young workers from across Belarus, as well as around 100 international participants. Six Inclusive Skills competitions were dedicated to young people with disabilities and special educational needs. Students from the Mogilev State College of Economics and Industrial Technologies won 4 of 6 gold medals. Their success reflects almost 3 decades of systematic work to build an inclusive learning environment.
Almost 30 years of experience: building an inclusive environment
The Mogilev State College of Economics and Industrial Technologies has been developing inclusive practices since 1997, when the country’s first center for the rehabilitation and social adaptation of children with special educational needs and disabilities was established at the college.
“After visiting Sweden, where our director saw a fundamentally different approach to people with disabilities, he realized that there was still a lot we could improve in Belarus. That was the beginning of our work to create a similar environment here,” says Tatiana Krassutskaya, Deputy Director for Educational and Production Activities at the college.
Today, around 170 students with disabilities and special educational needs study at the college across different levels of education. Learning formats are adapted to individual needs. Small groups of up to 12 students allow teachers to provide more intensive support, while inclusive groups enable students, including those with hearing or mobility impairments, to study alongside their peers.
The college provides medical support for students with special educational needs, as well as dedicated transport for students with limited mobility, sign language interpretation, and an on-site dental clinic. The academic building is connected to the student residence, making it easier for students who use wheelchairs to move between the two.
In 2019, the college also introduced distance learning for young people with severe mobility impairments — several years before the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of online education.
“We organized the learning process so that students could attend classes with their teachers in real time, even while staying at home. We saw this as an opportunity to provide education to those who physically could not get to the classroom,” Krassutskaya explains.
But the most important resource is the people: teachers who can combine an individualized approach with professional standards. Many of the college’s specialists have decades of experience working with students with special educational needs and disabilities.
“We do more than teach them a profession. Our teachers and experts see each student as an individual with potential and help them develop it,” Krassutskaya says.
When an education system is equipped to respond to different needs, it becomes more flexible and supportive for all learners.
From education to professional excellence
Inclusion is about more than having access to education. It is also about having the opportunity to demonstrate what you can do.
Professional skills competitions provide exactly that opportunity. For a student with special educational needs and disabilities, taking part in ProfSkills Belarus means having their skills and hard work assessed and recognized at the national level.
At the VI Republican Competition, students from the Mogilev State College of Economics and Industrial Technologies won 7 gold medals in the Inclusive Skills category.
Behind the medals are individual stories. Gennady Golovach won the Vegetable Growing competition and received a special Inclusive Skills award. The experience he gained during his studies strengthened his ambition to continue his education and become an agronomist. Danila Prusov, a student at the same college, won the Web Development competition. He found his professional path in IT, where knowledge, logical thinking and the quality of the result are at the heart of the work.Yulia Kravtsova and Vladislav Fedorovich also became gold medalists.
Tatiana Krassutskaya with Gennady Golovach, winner of ProfSkills Belarus in the Inclusive Skills Vegetable Growing competition and recipient of the title “Best Participant in the National Inclusive Skills Competition.”
The college contributes to the competition not only as an educational institution, but also as a center of professional expertise. Its teachers serve as national experts, develop competition tasks and help organize competitions in selected skills.
When people’s potential is at the heart of the system
According to Tatiana Krassutskaya, the secret to the college’s success is both simple and complex:
“Everything starts with the commitment of the leadership and teaching team. If there is a genuine desire to make these young people’s lives better, you can move mountains. Behind that commitment, we have almost three decades of experience, established links with employers, and a philosophy in which we never divide children into ‘special’ and ‘ordinary’.”
The experience of the Mogilev college and its students’ achievements at ProfSkills show how an inclusive learning environment can help young people build professional skills and move towards independent lives. This is also at the heart of effective partnerships in vocational education: creating conditions in which a young person’s abilities and interests can shape their professional future.
To strengthen inclusive vocational education, UNDP works with the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus, vocational education institutions and employers to support teacher development, knowledge exchange and modern approaches to learning. More than 800 VET professionals have already strengthened their skills through training, internships and study visits, while 1,317 students gained access to modernized learning facilities in the 2024/2025 academic year.
Investing in vocational education and professional skills competitions is ultimately an investment in people. It helps young people develop their talents, acquire relevant skills and build a path towards independent professional lives. And when more people can realize their potential, the benefits extend beyond individual students - strengthening the labour market and society as a whole.