As always?

I'm talking about monitoring universities again.

While public interest in this topic has begun to cool, while rectors, deputies, and academicians are all refining the criteria for effectiveness, the caravan moves on - and universities, as the Ministry of Education puts it, are reorganized.

However, almost no one talks about how this happens.

The collapse of the destinies of students and teachers, and what’s more, of entire cities occurs in silence and an atmosphere of complete indifference.

In this sense, the history of our local pedagogical academy is no exception.

Meanwhile, there is reason to talk about the logic and true results of the ministerial struggle for efficiency.

After all, the merger of the Kuzbass State Pedagogical Academy with Kemerovo State University is not even an analogue of the recent decision to merge the Komi State Pedagogical Institute with Syktyvkar State University, it is much worse.

As we remember, all of us were told that one of the main goals of monitoring was the fight for quality higher education, the fight in the name of students, for the good of the Motherland.

For this purpose, they intended to separate the lambs from the goats.

For this, very strange criteria were taken, which rightly continue to be criticized by the public.

However, if you look at the fate of the Kuzbass State Pedagogical Academy, there is reason to reproach the Ministry for inconsistency even in relation to its own criteria and stated goals.

Firstly, we have before us, as in the case of the Komi Pedagogical Institute and Syktyvkar State University, a merger of two weak and ineffective universities, in the opinion of the Ministry of Education itself. Both Kemerovo State University and Kuzbass Pedagogical Academy were found ineffective according to the results of the rating.

Of course, I understand that minus for minus gives a plus. But we still have before us the summation of negative quantities, and it will ultimately only give a negative quantity of larger size and volume.

I cannot understand how we can get a strong university and quality education by adding together a weak one.

The only possible explanation in this case is the desire for a simple quantitative reduction, which is what critics of the ministerial policy are talking about.

Secondly, the case with the Kuzbass State Pedagogical Academy, in contrast to the Syktyvkar Academy, is complicated by the fact that we have two universities that are located in different cities. Pedagogical Academy in Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo State University in Kemerovo. Thus, what we are faced with is not the creation of a single university, but the creation of just another branch of an ineffective, mind you, university. That is, some ineffective universities are reorganized, while others are given branches. Where is the logic, where is the consistency?

I must admit, I don’t find any logic in this turn of events. And here only one explanation is possible, which again fits into what critics of the Ministry of Education usually say - a course towards branchization of higher education with external ostentatious talk about the movement towards high-quality and strong universities.

On the other hand, the process of branching is the flip side of the desire for high performance rather than real achievements. By transferring independent universities into branches, the ministry comes to the conclusion that effective branches are replacing ineffective universities. Thus, on the one hand, an improvement in formal indicators in general is achieved, because the requirements for branches are lower than for independent universities. As a result, we get illusory efficiency, which will then be presented to us as a genuine improvement in indicators and revitalization of the education sector as a whole.

Changing plates thus leads to a change in parameters and to a purely statistical, bureaucratic increase in efficiency.

On the other hand, closing and dissolving a branch will be much easier than an independent university and organizing a branch instead of an independent university is already a sign that the end of the activity of this educational institution as a whole looms ahead.

Thirdly, the Kuzbass Pedagogical Academy will become the second branch of the ineffective Kemerovo State University in Novokuznetsk. Isn’t it bad for an ineffective university to have two branches in one city, the total number of students in which is almost more than in the main university itself?

Fourthly, it is imperceptible that the results of monitoring, and the Ministry promised this too, would somehow affect personnel changes in the administration of an ineffective university. The only possible explanation is that it left such a prerogative to the future parent university, which will thoroughly shake up the branch in this regard.

The case of the pedagogical academy is remarkable both in that the only pedagogical university in the region turns into a branch, and in that an educational institution that is not located in some village or small town, but in a city with more than half a million population, becomes a branch. The fate of hundreds of teachers and several thousand students is being decided, the question of the future of the city, which is losing one of its oldest universities, is being decided. It is lost because, most likely, no real assistance will be provided in the development of the university, because the new owner of KuzGPA himself needs to get out of the ineffective ones, and changing the sign will not improve either the financial and technical situation or the teaching staff. Rather, on the contrary, it will worsen, because a branch is already obviously low requirements.

However, the worst thing is that this is happening with the now usual complete indifference, sluggish reaction of the townspeople themselves, the teachers themselves, and even the students. So, we spent one evening at a local forum - and that’s enough.

Maybe they'll come to their senses later. But this is already “as always”.