Throughout the summer, the higher school of Russia was shaken by scandals related to existing assessments of the quality of education. For example, the leaders of the 50 largest Russian universities appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a proposal to abolish the current system of state accreditation as "outdated". The discussion escalated even further with a beginning of the school year. In fact some universities began planning the complete rejection of traditional lectures and their replacement with online courses. First meeting of the working group involved in development of a new system of state accreditation and licensing of higher education institutions took place on October 10. "Forpost" asked the Principal of Saint-Petersburg Mining University to comment on this issue. Under the leadership of Vladimir Litvinenko, the University got as high as number 16 in the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings.
As today politicians or scientists speak about the need to improve the accreditation procedure of higher education institutions in Russia on a daily basis, do you believe that these measures will actually allow the system of higher education in Russia to reach a new level or, on the opposite, it is just another populist policy that will not change anything?
To improve the quality of higher engineering education in our country, we need to improve the State regulation of the training process. The economy grows primarily through development and implementation of high technologies, which requires a radical improvement in the proficiency level of former graduates. They should not only possess the knowledge on a sufficient level to be able to solve complex engineering problems, but also have a set of additional competencies and skills.
Public entities from the leading countries of the world are actively switching to the following framework: after the graduation, holders of the Bachelor’s degree go on three years long internship, whereas Masters and Specialists work as interns for 2 years. This is followed by accreditation procedure of the former graduates by experts from the professional community for the "Professional Engineer" title. The system of granting the rights to engage in designing, expert evaluation, performing other works throughout the whole manufacturing chain is being also constantly developed. Personal responsibility of task performers has been increased as well. The right to conduct aforementioned works and personal responsibility are provided to individuals bearing an "Authorized Engineer" status, which is also assigned by experts of the professional community.
The main task of technical universities is to provide graduates with a set of knowledge and skills within the framework of state educational standards. The task of professional communities is to provide graduates with practical skills during the internship period and train them to pass the exam so as to be certified with the "Professional Engineer" title. As it has been said, the examiner is an expert council of the professional community of manufacturers.
The problems of fast adaptation of graduate engineers to the market requirements may not be solved without real improvements in the governmental regulation of the higher education.
The representatives of the higher school have quite a lot of complaints to Rosobrnadzor (Federal Education and Science Supervision Agency in Russia). Is this institution actually necessary?
Currently the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and Rosobrnadzor are two independent structures of federal importance. This is one thing if Rosobrnadzor’s only task would be to certify educational programs. The other way round, if it is equipped with a set of new responsibilities, such as regulation of the university activities and monitoring the performance of their obligations. In this case, the accreditation issue will clearly be not the most important one.
Rosobrnadzor’s performance should be based on different principles. It comes clear if we take into account experience of the world’s leading countries. Educational standards should be flexible and meet the minimum thresholds. The existing professional educational standards require a thorough revision. Not to mention the fact that some educational pathways have not been standardized at all. In practice, universities of all categories should meet the minimum requirements. This is the minimum standard.
The accreditation should be organized in a way that the human factor is minimized, and the university requirements are clearly defined and quantified. Talking about the quality of educational programs, the personal responsibility is mainly the liability of universities. It is also advisable to establish a State Federal Council, probably on the basis of the Ministry of Education and Science, to discuss the standards of educational programs. The new council might be comprised of representatives of university communities and employers. The main function of competent in both the educational systems and manufacturing experts would be to assess the standards developed by the professional community, real-time correction and compliance control. In the best case scenario, all these activities should be performed with no attention-grabbing PR activities involved.
Is it possible to diagnose the Russian higher school case? Is the patient more alive than dead?
I would not like the readers to get a wrong impression of the need for revolutionary changes. In general, the state of higher education in Russia is by no means any worse than in other countries. We scold ourselves, but no surgery required. What is actually needed is a therapeutic intervention – a correction, not a major restructuring.
