Diska announced the following on the Russian forums (translated using Google Translate):
From today, on June 28, 2017, on all realms the system of pumping the character is simplified.
We abolish all the additional factors that influenced the optimality of the character's growth in this or that field of knowledge. They are canceled as unit-specific factors (taxes in stores for Trade, product quality in production units for Production, etc.), and "technological" influence.
Thus, now for all qualifications, the only factor of natural pumping is the load for the maximum number of workers, taking into account the efficiency of the units.
To calculate the effectiveness of the units, the algorithms remain unchanged..
It looks like overloading TOP1 will still reduce efficiency and hurt qualification growth but having TOP1 set at less than the maximum will no longer hurt qualification growth so maximizing TOP3 and having 100% efficiency at each subdivision is all that is necessary to achieve optimum qualification growth.
excellent! Now I know why my qualification growth picked up all of a sudden. Bummer though that it isn't because I made some genius move (unknowingly, but genius nevertheless :-D)