| The President decided to personally convince rectors of the need for reforms On the eve of the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, where Russia is going to offer the world a number of initiatives in the field of education, Vladimir Putin had to personally ensure at least the appearance of unanimity in the domestic teaching community. Yesterday, the president “took in tow” the Minister of Education and Science Andrei Fursenko to help him resolve differences with the Russian Union of Rectors, whose members are not only skeptical about plans to modernize higher education, but sometimes quite successfully block the initiatives of government reformers. As soon as he appeared at the opening VIII Congress of the RSR, Mr. Putin called on the heads of leading Russian universities to “work together and constructively” with Mr. Fursenko’s department. “I want us to speak the same language,” the president emphasized, calling for “to rise above personal and corporate interests in the interests of the cause.”
To make the common cause seem interesting to each individual rector, the head of state immediately showered golden rain on the heads of universities. Vladimir Putin recalled that the federal budget already spends more than 140 billion rubles on the maintenance of universities. per year. In addition, to support education, it is planned to create so-called resource capital funds, which the president talked about with businessmen several months ago. “These funds are supposed to be formed both at the expense of the state budget and business or together with it,” Mr. Putin explained, adding that “the corresponding instructions have been given, and documents will be prepared in the shortest possible time to implement the project.” The national project “Education” was not forgotten either, within the framework of which, according to the president, “a number of updated budget and management technologies have already been proposed.” However, the rectors did not have to be reminded about this - the first 10 billion rubles. As part of the national project, 17 universities were allocated - winners of the innovation competition two weeks ago.
The president also spoke out for expanding the independence of universities in order to increase the efficiency of budget expenditures in the education sector. “The general principle of the development of education should remain increasing the independence of educational institutions, which gives scope to both pedagogical and managerial initiatives,” said Vladimir Putin. But he immediately made it clear that the promised financial resources and powers would not go to universities and institutes in vain. “Greater economic independence will require greater responsibility and modern forms of management,” the head of state emphasized.
By “modern forms of management,” Mr. Putin obviously meant, among other things, the proposal recently approved by the State Duma to introduce the position of president in universities, who, unlike the elected rector, will already be appointed by the Ministry of Education and Science and perform the function of “economic commissar.” The President of Russia also reminded that representatives of socially responsible businesses are also going to dictate their terms to educational institutions. Noting that today “the need for external assessment of the quality of taught knowledge comes to the fore,” Vladimir Putin spoke about his recent agreements with the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs: businesses were given the go-ahead to compile a ranking of universities and institutes, develop professional training standards, and even conduct qualification tests exams for young professionals.
The president's generous promises only partially satisfied the rectors - they agreed to take extrabudgetary money, but demanded that guarantees of budget funding be maintained and that plans to change the status of universities be abandoned. “We also support expanding the independence of universities, but there should be no change in status,” said RSR President and Rector of Moscow State University Viktor Sadovnichy. According to him, otherwise there will be a threat of mass privatization of the property of universities and institutes, which is fraught with the “collapse of education.” The rector of Moscow State University also gave his assessment of modern forms of higher education management. “We are not against the introduction of a new position of university president, but certain amendments must be made to the bill. A former rector who knows first-hand about the problems of this educational institution should be elected as the president of the university,” said Mr. Sadovnichy.
In the presence of the president, the rectors also agreed to an “external audit” from the business community, who were going to inspect the quality of the universities’ training of young specialists. The head of the RSR signed a cooperation agreement with the Chairman of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Alexander Shokhin, the President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Evgeny Primakov, and representatives of the associations “Business Russia” and “Opora Rossii”. Mr. Shokhin, recalling that “business is interested in dramatically improving the quality of education,” announced the intention of the RSPP to “actively participate in the formation of qualification requirements.”
And so that after the end of the congress the rectors, who, judging by their yesterday’s speeches, still do not agree with the proposals of the reformers in everything, do not have a desire to quietly sabotage all the government’s initiatives, Vladimir Putin called on “to carry out what we agree on.” “Doing nothing either in education or in science today is even worse than looking for solutions through mistakes,” the president emphasized, noting that “it would be better not to make mistakes.” Alexander GUDKOV |
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