The Institute is actively involved in training of permafrost scientists and engineers. On Institute's initiative a permafrost department was established in the Yakutsk University (now the North-Eastern Federal University ) in 1978 to educate students in the fields of permafrost engineering, environmental geoscience and hydrogeology. A branch of this department has been maintained by the Institute since 1991. Institute's leading scientists give lectures and teach seminars on 17 courses, direct student's projects, and act as examiners. Selected students are engaged in half-time employment in the Institute's laboratories and join the permanent staff after graduation. The Institute's scientists also give lectures at the NEFU faculties of geography and ecology. Graduates from these faculties work successfully in the Institute, some of them have already become leading specialists in the fields of general and regional geocryology. In 1993 the Institute established the Mikhail Sumgin and Pavel Melnikov scholarships to honour the two outstanding Russian permafrost scientists. The scholarships are awarded annually to undergraduate students of the permafrost departments of the NEFU and Moscow University who demonstrate excellent academic ability.

To encourage and stimulate young scientists of the Permafrost Institute and to motivate students of the North-Eastern Federal University to pursue careers in permafrost science, the P.I. Melnikov Prize was established in 2007 by the Permafrost Institute administration. This monetary award is presented annually to the best research projects conducted by teams of junior researchers, post-graduate students and undergraduates. From 2008, the Melnikov Permafrost institute holds Forums for Young Permafrost Scientists (FYPS), each consisting of a conference and a field trip. These events are intended to strengthen international and interregional cooperation between young researchers, as well as to generate interest and develop skills in making field observations.

The Institute offers graduate study programs in engineering geology, geocryology and geotechnical engineering leading to the Kandidat Nauk degrees in geography, geology & mineralogy, and engineering. Since 1965, over 70 students completed the programs, almost half of which were awarded the doctoral degree of Kandidat Nauk.

A dissertation council, founded in 1983, is authorized to award Doktor Nauk (D.Sc.) and Kandidat Nauk (Ph.D. equivalent) degrees in geography, geology & mineralogy, and engineering (qualification standard 25.00.08 – engineering geology, geocryology and geotechnical engineering).

The Institute has a full right to be called an education centre, as it trains new generations of geocryologists, geographers, environmental geoscientists, and hydrogeologists for the Republic of Sakha/Yakutia and the whole north-eastern region of Russia .

The Melnikov Permafrost Institute and the NEFU Permafrost Department run field courses in geocryology, groundwater exploration, geology and geophysics programs at the Ulakhan-Taryn site, the MPI Chabyda station (both in central Yakutia) and the Tompo field camp in the Verkhoyansk Mountains.
Mastering skills in chemical analysis of water in the field, Chabyda station.	Learning how to conduct land surveying, Ulakhan-Taryn icing site.
Hydrogeology students at an icing formed by the Ulakhan-Taryn Springs.	Installing temperature data loggers at  Domokhotova  Mt.,  1600 m asl, in the  Verkhoyansk  Mountains .