No. 191 3 November 2016 russian analytical digest www.css.ethz.ch/en/publications/rad.html www.laender-analysen.de GLOBALISING OR NATIONALISING—RUSSIAN ACADEMIA ■■ANALYSIS Education in Russia, 2016 2 By Ivan Kurilla, St. Petersburg ■■ANALYSIS Corruption in Russian Higher Education 5 Elena Denisova-Schmidt, St. Gallen/Chestnut Hill, MA ■■DATA Corruption and Education 7 ■■OPINION POLL Attitudes Towards Education 9 Institute for European, Research Centre Center for German Association for Russian, and Eurasian Studies Institute of History for East European Studies Security Studies East European Studies The George Washington University of Zurich University University of Bremen ETH Zurich RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 191, 3 November 2016 2 ANALYSIS Education in Russia, 2016 By Ivan Kurilla, St. Petersburg Abstract The Russian president has declared education to be a top priority in coming years. However, the field faces several challenges, including constrained resources and numerous splits among educators and administra- tors. While some centers of excellence are emerging, much of the education system is falling into neglect. The Most Important Goal the closure of some universities, either by a decree can- “We clearly understand that it is people who create and celling the university’s license or through mergers. New use technologies,” Russian President Vladimir Putin budget restrictions led to severe cuts in the number of said during the St. Petersburg Economic Forum on June professors’ positions. One popular move for adminis- 17, 2016. “Talented researchers, qualified engineers and trators was simplifying the requirements for receiving workers play a crucial role in making the national econ- a baccalaureate’s degree and increasing class sizes. The omy competitive. Therefore education is something we idea of an “efficient contract” introduced by the Min- should pay particular attention to in the next few years.”1 istry as an incentive for professors to work more effec- The Russian language version was even more straight- tively was perceived by faculty members as yet another forward compared to this official English translation: attempt to increase their workload. The transition from «Поэтому считаю образование самым главным, на что a five-year “specialist” degree to a four-year baccalaure- мы должны обратить внимание в ближайшие годы» ate also aggravated the situation. The less specialized “I consider education the most important (task) we need baccalaureate led to larger classes and allowed univer- to pay attention to in the upcoming years.” The reasons sities to offer fewer disciplines. for such a bold statement could be manifold, and include Another cost-cutting measure was the creation of the start of an election campaign, obvious gridlock in “federal universities” in each federal district (usually by defining a Russian strategic vision, and the need for the merging several existing universities in one city or some- new sources of economic development. In any case, the times in several neighboring cities into one institution), field is too important for Russians to neglect. and the process continues until the present. While Pres- Three years after I made a previous snapshot of Rus- ident Putin called for “particular attention” to educa- sian education (see RAD No. 137, 9 October 2013), the tion, his chief of staff Sergey Ivanov criticized the “higher situation continues to develop mostly in the same direc- schools in the Russian Federation and the [large] number tion that was already apparent then. However, the field of colleges,” a concern echoed by Tyumen governor Vla- looks more nuanced and complex now. The splits that dimir Yakushev who suggested “cutting the [number exist within the educational community have acquired of] universities.” new dimensions since the open turn of the Russian authorities to isolation from the world community. Two Splits The first significant split, which was already apparent in Higher Education Shrinking the previous decade and continues to grow, is the cleav- State policy on education during the last four years was age between scholars and professors on the one side, defined to a large extent by the so-called “May (2012) and bureaucrats on the other. The Ministry of Educa- Decrees” of President Vladimir Putin, who ordered that tion and Science and the Russian Federal Service for professors’ salaries be increased to double the median Supervision in Education and Science (Rosobrnadzor), salary in each region, and school teachers’ pay to the as well as the Federal Agency on Scientific Organiza- level of that median. As no special budget funds were tions (FANO) produce mountains of requirements, reg- allocated for this purpose, the Ministry of Education ulations, and report forms that teachers and professors and Science, regional authorities and university rectors are obliged to fill out and file. The bureaucracy cannot needed to cut the number of professors in order to raise rely on reputation and trust, so the state invents paper the salary of the remaining faculty. The last several years reports that replace trust and peer-review. Professors and saw growing workloads per professor (teacher), as well as teachers are obviously indignant, but they have been put in a position where protests are futile or even dangerous. 1 Vladimir Putin at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg Inter- Nevertheless, two independent trade unions were national Economic Forum, June 17, 2016. <http://en.kremlin. created, one (since 2011)—“Uchitel” (Teacher) that ru/events/president/news/52178> unites secondary school pedagogues and the other RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 191, 3 November 2016 3 (since 2013)—“Universitetskaya solidarnost” (Univer- versities received the new status of “Opornye” (regional) sity Solidarity) that was created by university profes- universities, meaning that the state continues to support sors. Both unions are small in size and the members one university in a region to guarantee access to higher experience pressure from the administration, but both education in regions with neither federal nor national are well known among educators, and attract sympa- research universities present. Each group receives special thy and hope. funding that distinguishes one university from another. The second split is partially related to the same bureaucratic approach to problem solving, but focuses Dissernet on a different angle. The Ministry in its attempt to make One of the most successful grassroots initiatives of the academic work accountable increasingly relies on inter- last several years was the Dissernet project, a network of nationally recognized bibliometrics in order to measure scholars who investigate cases of plagiarism in disserta- a professor’s competence. Without high a Hirsch-index tions. Its leaders, scholars Andrey Rostovtsev and Andrey and publications in peer-reviewed international journals, Zayakin and journalist and public figure Sergey Parkho- a professor now has problems with being allowed to sit menko, coordinate the work of dozens of volunteers who on dissertation committees, and even reappointment for compare the texts of dissertations and other scholarly his or her position. These new Ministry requirements work. Dissernet exposed hundreds of “stolen degrees” push Russian scholars to publish abroad, but at the same and filed multiple cases with the Ministry of Educa- time the new standards have alienated several big groups tion and Science Committee on Attestation (VAK) and in academia, including those who do not write in Eng- dissertation councils against holders of such plagiarized lish and those who deem the new requirements artifi- degrees. They also made it clear that many politicians— cial and even detrimental to Russian science. The latter governors and State Duma deputies—“defended” fal- claim is especially popular among faculty in the arts sified dissertations, but such cases are not rare among and humanities, who insist on the national character rectors of state universities as well. The Ministry of Edu- of their field. Certainly, scholars who are not competi- cation and Science, while not openly supportive of the tive internationally are also protesting this innovation. public initiative, seems to be attentive to the Dissernet findings; in many cases rectors lost their jobs soon after University Hierarchy their plagiarized dissertations were exposed, and the The process of dividing Russia’s universities into sev- expert boards of the VAK was completely overhauled eral tiers continued and the number of “tiers” increased. during the last two years. The Public board (obshchest- The new hierarchy of universities includes Moscow and venny sovet) of the Ministry of Education and Science St. Petersburg state universities as special cases, federal, now includes several reformist professors and teachers national research, «opornye» (regional) universities, and including Dissernet activist Mikhail Gelfand. the rest. In June 2016 there were 10 federal universities in Internationalization of Education vs Russia. Initially the intention was to have one for each Nationalization of Politics of the federal districts, but eventually two additional fed- The introduction of bibliometrics is not the only deci- eral universities were created—one in the Far Eastern sion of the Ministry that pushes higher education into Federal District (there are two federal universities in the deeper participation in international science. The crite- Far East—Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivos-