| The Minister of Education does not believe economists with diplomas from the Institute of Culture For now, Russian students do not have to fear the reduction of budget places in universities. The head of the Ministry of Education and Science, Andrei Fursenko, yesterday denied rumors about the allegedly planned dramatic commercialization of higher education. “The number of free places in higher educational institutions in Russia will remain unchanged,” the minister, who is on a business trip in Krasnoyarsk, told a Vremya Novostey correspondent. -- In accordance with the federal law on education, there should be 170 places in universities for every 10 thousand people - and so it will be. We must create all conditions so that those who want and are able to obtain a higher education can receive it.” The minister also suggested: “We will soon fall short of this standard due to demographic problems.”
Let us recall that the admission target figures for 2005 were discussed on March 9 at the board of the Ministry of Education. As Vremya Novostei learned from a source in the ministry, at the meeting a proposal was actually made to reduce the number of budget students. Budget funds would be enough to admit 576,285 freshmen, which is even 2% more than last year. The economic block of the ministry, however, considered it necessary to reduce this number. Representatives of the Federal Agency for Education (Rosobrazovanie) insisted on fulfilling the state order in full.
To date, the decision of the board has not yet been approved. The official decision will appear in about a week. But it is already known that the board took as a basis the fulfillment of the state task at the level of 91%. In particular, it is proposed to reduce the quota for training humanists by 7.2%, economists and managers by 4.4%, and teachers by 2.2%. At the same time, the number of budget places in the specialty “service sector” (by 2.6%) and “automation and control” (by 1%) is increasing.
However, judging by Andrei Fursenko’s statements yesterday, these figures may still change, especially since Rosobrazovanie intends to work hard to achieve this in the near future. As the minister explained, he has no goal of mechanically reducing budget places. This is mainly about the redistribution of public money in the field of higher education in order to improve the quality of services. “A good lawyer cannot be trained at an agricultural university, and a qualified economist cannot be trained at a cultural institute,” Andrei Fursenko has repeatedly stated and accused industry universities of misusing money. The reduction in budget places will affect precisely such educational institutions. The released funds can be directed to universities where training programs meet high standards, as well as to specialties that are in demand in the country. Universities will be able to teach non-core disciplines exclusively on a commercial basis. To reduce the number of dubious diplomas, Andrei Fursenko promised to close some universities altogether: “The excess of non-state universities and branches of state universities only reduces the quality of Russian education as a whole.”
Despite the fact that there has been talk about the reduction of specialties in industry universities for quite some time, the decision of the March board caused a shock in the rectors’ community. Transport universities began vying with each other to justify the fact that they train the same lawyers and managers exclusively with a transport specialization, and agricultural universities - on issues of land use. However, the ministry has taken a firm position and believes that all the necessary narrow-profile skills can be learned at work, where a specialist will come with a diploma from a reputable university.
By the way, not only rectors are among the opponents of the initiatives carried out by the ministry. Yesterday, at a meeting with representatives of youth organizations and students of Krasnoyarsk universities, two young people threw raw eggs at Andrei Fursenko. As it turned out later, fifth-year student of the Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University Roman Burlak and a native of Tyumen Maxim Firsov are activists of the Union of Communist Youth, which has long been protesting against education reform. It is worth noting the efficiency of the investigative authorities. Roman Burlak has already received ten days for “insulting a government official in the performance of his official duties.” The second extremist managed to escape and is wanted. Kirill VASILENKO, Alexander KLIMOVICH, Krasnoyarsk |
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