Translated material
“Something is rotten in the Danish kingdom”
So says a student of Shakespeare's era, studying at the University of Wittenberg, advanced for its time. Apparently, a certain level of student dissatisfaction with the university education system has always existed. Has much changed since then?
The state has developed and is developing a number of documents on the development of higher education (national programs, concepts, doctrines, strategies, etc.). It is difficult to identify clear goals in them, but some can be found. In particular, in the Concept of long-term socio-economic development of the Russian Federation for the period until 2020, two goals can be found: accessibility and quality of higher education.
In general, availability and quality are somewhat contradictory parameters. Relatively speaking, the product of these two quantities is a constant quantity. And the natural question is: who defines them and how? The Ministry of Education and Science understands these tasks as a frontier of work for its officials. Let's say, if they now introduce the Unified State Exam after graduating from universities, then everyone understands that they will spend a lot of money on developing a regulatory framework, methods, creating institutes, testing, etc. And we can already imagine how resourceful teachers and students will invent ways to pass the qualifying Unified State Exam. And the answer to the question will remain open: after the introduction of such a Unified State Examination system, will more and more Western specialists be hired to work in Russian companies (although there is nothing wrong with this), and more and more foreign aviation and military equipment and other high-tech products will be purchased , software, etc.
Everyone is hearing about the transformations that have taken place:
— Admission to universities based on Unified State Examination results.
Is the availability of prestigious education increasing for students from the regions? It is impossible to give a definite answer. Indeed, there was a certain surge in the number of talented applicants from the provinces in the first year of the widespread introduction of the Unified State Exam. However, this was while leading universities had not yet adapted to the new conditions. The latest scandal with the second honey shows that everything is now under control. In addition, the concept of accessibility includes not only the ability to send an application by mail to several universities, but also the cost of accommodation, food and other significant expenses.
Does the quality of school education improve with the use of the Unified State Exam? Not at all, if this is the only measure of quality, and the Ministry of Education and Science determines its criteria depending on how schoolchildren answer the Unified State Exam questions. A whole range of measures to improve procedures is now being proposed. For example, separate the Unified State Exam from schools. The question immediately arises: when they copied this system, did they not notice how it was implemented abroad?
— Use of educational loans. This innovation practically failed.
— Connection to the Bologna process — transition to a two-level system of higher education, a modular-credit system for recording the level of education. Just as there was a huge academic difference when moving from one Russian university to another, it remains so.
— The creation of federal universities is the merger of several regional universities into one. There is a loss of once famous brands, and an inevitable reduction in the number of teachers, often the most talented. According to some information (in particular, the Southern Federal University is mentioned), the salaries of the administrative top have increased significantly, while those of ordinary employees have remained at the same low level. When the FU includes universities that are inferior in the quality of education to the main one, the quality of education as a whole becomes significantly lower than it was generally before the unification.
— Creation of national research universities. This process took place without introducing the concept of “research and educational organization” into the legislation on education of the Russian Federation: in the law of the Russian Federation and its draft there are only purely educational and purely scientific organizations. Problems of integration of science and education remain.
— Translation of fundamental science into universities. In fact, it means the disintegration of academic and university science.
— Granting two universities a special status and abolishing the election of rectors of these two universities. In fact, leading universities were deprived of autonomy and self-government.
When talking about real, evidence-based education policy, it is worth highlighting the key factors that influence student success. Thus, for school, Paul Barton in 2004 identified 14 factors (of which 8 were preschool and out-of-school reasons) [1]. And among in-school ones these are:
• rigor of the curriculum;
• teacher experience and attendance;
• teacher preparedness;
• class size;
• technological teaching methods;
• school safety;
Some studies show the key importance of certain educational skills (such as reading at a certain level or completing a certain high school age) for all subsequent educational success. Proposed solutions to key problems should be judged by evidence of how they can solve those problems.
Do the above motives for modernizing higher education, for example, meet the following two practical goals:
1. Increasing the level of prestige of Russian universities in the international educational arena (the number of foreign students seeking to receive a Russian education). Why not put forward this parameter as the main one as a measure of the quality of education - how much in leading universities the number of foreign students who are ready to pay for Russian education from their personal wallets is increasing. It would be interesting to know how many foreign students study at the Higher School of Economics, which receives the largest amount of money per student for research and educational activities.
2. Achieving a level of quality in higher education that generally satisfies motivated students and employers within the country (scientific organizations, industrial and high-tech companies and other customers). How do external organizations interested in graduates evaluate the quality of education based on their criteria? For a student, fulfilling this criterion means increasing the employability of students within the country after graduating from universities. Question: does anyone track the fate of Russian university graduates and monitor their salary levels? Is this parameter included in the indicators of the quality of education at Russian universities? It would seem that this would not be so difficult for universities to implement.
For the following considerations, some figures are necessary. Let us give a lower estimate of the cost of education for a graduate for the budget at a leading university in the Russian Federation.
The federal budget of Moscow State University is at least 10 billion rubles/year (without capital investments, extra-budgetary and other sources of financing). The number of graduates is approximately 10 thousand/year. It turns out that one MSU graduate costs the state at least 1 million rubles. (approximately 33 thousand US dollars). By comparison, the cost per Harvard University graduate is at least $1 million. The last figure seems to be a good argument for our rectors: give us the same money, and we will also be among the leaders in global university education. But here doubts arise.
Recently, pictures of a new bike path built at Moscow State University went around the Internet. This was written, for example, by the website bamboo.ru [2] and the website of supporters of the cycling movement letsbikeit.ru [3]. Here is one of the photographs taken from photoblogger Alexander Tugunov [4]. It seems to me that this is a vivid symbol and image of the essence of ongoing investments in university education.
But the main philosophical problem of modern higher education, which concerns not only Russian education, is this: in universities and universities we teach to a greater extent what is no longer relevant at the moment. Organizations and companies in the real sector of science and technology have greater knowledge and skills than universities in doing business, in the technological and information spheres, but are not economically interested in participating in the educational activities of universities. Attempts to involve universities in the sphere of commercialization (in particular, the creation of innovative enterprises under 217-FZ) for the most part resemble the construction of Potemkin villages (and even the Skolkovo village is still too far from proving the effectiveness of its model). Therefore, from my point of view, it is promising and attractive to think about how student internship programs can become the basis for reforming higher education.
Oddly enough, the proposal is to cut funding for universities, and here's the mechanism. First of all, we need to suggest the following:
1. Develop internship programs in companies (public and private), scientific organizations and institutions, including universities themselves, small businesses and start-ups, as part of the educational program, starting from the 3rd year. The cost of such a program for the budget should be determined based on the internship time in the general curriculum. This part of the curriculum should probably constitute at least one-fifth of the entire curriculum. Accordingly, for Moscow State University, budget costs for internships will be at least $6,000 per student
2. Conduct expert accreditation of internship sites by the scientific, educational and professional community.
3. Give the student the opportunity, independently or with the help of agencies, to choose internship sites according to their specialty profile, including, possibly, at the university itself.
4. Reduce the university budget by the amount of budget costs for internship programs.
5. The costs of internships should be transferred in the form of government subsidies after the student to the company (organization and, possibly, university) where the student is undergoing an internship.
A testable parameter for the effectiveness of such a model would be the percentage of demand for university graduates.
The proposed “small” changes to higher education, from my point of view, would work to develop university education ahead of demand, and would actually implement real integration of education, science, industry and business.
Of course, taking money away from universities is unrealistic, but future increases in higher education budgets could be directed toward this program. At the same time, university teachers can also benefit due to the fact that the hourly teaching load will decrease and there will be an opportunity to pay more attention to improving their qualifications.
Valery Platonov,
Executive Director
ANOO "Higher University of Science and Technology"
at the institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences
2. www.bambooo.ru/321-prospekt-vernadskogo-perekrasili-pod-velosipedistov
3. http://letsbikeit.ru/2011/08/mechta-vstrechaetsya-s-realnostyu/