The appearance of AI can be compared to that of the Internet. However, AI has become the reality of the academic community, and educators face the challenge that learners can substitute their own knowledge with that of AI, but also learn how to apply this awareness properly. It is a well-known fact that AI works depending on the amount of information contained on the Internet, and the prompt frequency as well as the quality is paramount. Thus, the authors pose the question whether AI might influence the quality of the future of education, and consider the competencies of educators required for education improvements. The present chapter explores the skillset of a course designer who uses AI for course creation, including the development of course goals, learning objectives, assessment tools, and material design. The research was conducted in NUST MISIS in 2024: two categories of students, i.e. BA students studying teaching, and MA students studying course design, were asked to compile a syllabus using AI. Their level of competencies was then compared and described.

In the context of the digitalization drive in academia, the interventions of AI, the emerging cyber threats to both learners and teachers, the competition of the teacher competency with AI ̶ the survival of HE depends on technical and didactic innovations. The competency potential (CP) of the elements of HE has been successfully researched and trialed internationally since 1998. The key challenge here is in the capacity of a mediocre НЕ course-designer to cope with the planning and realization of CP of his/her course(s). The research question in the study (2022-2024) was if it is possible to harness AI for the planning and realization of the CP of training in HE. The research sub-questions associated (1) with the make-up of the AI-relevant competency of the HE course-designers, (2) with the ways of development of that HE teacher's competency. The results are promising, but much of the further input (theoretical, empirical, digital data, software, etc.) is evidently needed so that AI to confidently come into the field of the implementation of CP of training in HE.

Most of the Russia's territory – with its focal small living settlements - does not have sufficient educational infrastructure. Schools teach children living in the neighboring settlements where the construction and operation of schools do not prove reasonable. The authors focus on the challenges faced by the developing countries: the challenge is between the imperfection of educational environment and the need to ensure an adequate level of educational results. Russia pays special attention to the so-called ‘advanced special economic zones' (ASEZ): the increasing flow of investments will lead to a shift of population between ASEZ and the adjacent regions, and this will require managerial decisions on changes in the educational infrastructure. As the variety of transport and residence conditions in these regions is large, the decision can hardly be limited to one criterion when deciding on building a new school. As a novelty, a complex of criteria for making such managerial decisions is considered based on mathematical modeling and analysis of legal acts and scientific publications.

The chapter presents the results of a sociological study of the satisfaction of parents with their access to education in preschool institutions in Russia, and the focus is on priority territories and advanced special economic zones. The available educational environment – i.e., infrastructure and equipment of preschool institutions, their transport, digital and financial accessibility – were studied with specially developed questionnaires. The relevance of the research is due to the Russian national objectives for the effective socio-economic development of the country, which associates with accessibility of quality education. The chapter reviews the contemporary Russian and international studies focused on the satisfaction of the population with the existing educational infrastructure and the quality of educational services in preschool institutions. The results can be applied to the development of educational environment in other world's regions. The questionnaires can be further used to conduct monitoring of the dynamics of population satisfaction with the availability of education.

The Department of Foreign Languages and Intercultural Communication at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation is growing the status of an international platform for the research into Cognitive Linguistics and Professional Linguodidactics (PLD). It reflected the outcomes of that research both in the community-significant and large-scale conferences, and in the innovative educational process. The actualization of the inseparable connection between the research and the social and education practice is due to the opening of the undergraduate program in linguistics that was launched at the Financial University in the 2021–2022 academic year. The materials of this article reflect the first results of implementing the master’s program ‘Actual Problems of Linguodidactics and Methods of Teaching a Foreign Language. The core idea of this program rests in the definition of the linguodidactic foundations that reveal the structural and the content model of the development of the information and analytical competence of a future professional who would be capable of ensuring the information security of an organization by linguistic means. In the discussion part, the authors argue it proved the scientific and the practical interaction of the university teachers and their undergraduates to be embodied, on the one hand, in the course of the theoretical substantiation of the axiological strategies of foreign language education. (The latter determining the key concepts that play the role of the wording of the principles of PLD, i. e. the academic field that gained a new sound in the present research.) On the other hand, this interaction affects the selection of the adequate technologies that is necessitated by the said principles and the development of the specific target tasks that bring to life the mission the program’s focus, i. e. the linguistic support of the information security of an organization.