25 Years of Transformations of Higher Education Systems in Post-Soviet Countries
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
PALGRAVE STUDIES IN GLOBAL HIGHER EDUCATION 25 YEARS OF TRANSFORMATIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEMS IN POST-SOVIET COUNTRIES REFORM AND CONTINUITY EDITED BY JEROEN HUISMAN, ANNA SMOLENTSEVA, ISAK FROUMIN Palgrave Studies in Global Higher Education Series Editors Roger King School of Management University of Bath Bath, UK Jenny Lee Centre for the Study of Higher Education University of Arizona Tuscon, Arizona, USA Simon Marginson Institute of Education University College London London, UK Rajani Naidoo School of Management University of Bath Bath, UK This series aims to explore the globalization of higher education and the impact this has had on education systems around the world including East Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the US. Analyzing HE systems and policy this series will provide a comprehensive overview of how HE within different nations and/or regions is responding to the new age of universal mass higher education. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14624 Jeroen Huisman • Anna Smolentseva Isak Froumin Editors 25 Years of Transformations of Higher Education Systems in Post-Soviet Countries Reform and Continuity Editors Jeroen Huisman Anna Smolentseva University of Ghent National Research University Ghent, Belgium Higher School of Economics Moscow, Russia Isak Froumin National Research University Higher School of Economics Moscow, Russia Palgrave Studies in Global Higher Education ISBN 978-3-319-52979-0 ISBN 978-3-319-52980-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52980-6 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017964090 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This book is an open access publication Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: Utamaru Kido / Getty Stock Images Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer International Publishing AG part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland This volume is dedicated to the memory of our colleagues, Dmitry Semyonov, Evgeny Kniazev and Natalya Drantusova, in recognition of their original contribution to the study of post-Soviet higher education and its institutional landscape. PREFACE: CHALLENGES AND ADVANTAGES OF EXpLORING POST-SOVIET HIGHER EDUCATION The Soviet Union fell apart a quarter of a century ago. Fifteen newly born countries started their independent development in 1991 and a formerly unified higher education system was divided up. The basic commonality of Soviet design at the beginning of the independent era and the dramatic transformations of the post-Soviet period serve as the point of departure for this study. Post-Soviet countries have different histories, and their socialist past is not the only thing that builds their identities. Yet, it would be incorrect to deny the significance of such a long and intense period in their national histories. This experience is still on the table. Politicians, experts and aca- demics still often discuss the present while referring to the past. However, such references are not enough to grasp the effect of the Soviet past on modern states and bring insights to understand the further development of these societies. Both academic and pragmatic discourse lack a wide sys- temic picture. The studies of post-socialist countries are especially crucial as they debunk the myths. Soviet society was not monolithic. Norms and practices changed over time and varied among communities. Identification of the real differences and similarities beyond the proclaimed statements is important and requires a generous amount of ambitious studies. Nevertheless, even very general assumptions about the Soviet past can result in great contributions to the discussion, especially if the research is comparative. Juxtaposition can reveal the core rationales for changes and the foundations of the current state of affairs. The simultaneous start of vii viii PREFACE: CHALLENGES AND ADVANTAGES OF EXPLORING POST-SOVIET... countries’ own trajectories makes the observed period the field of ‘natural experiment’ which should be described. In studies of post-Soviet higher education, researchers usually focus on particular issues. Academic discourse consists of a number papers that investigate several topics of higher education development (e.g. outcomes of reforms, internationalization, academic profession); they often consider several countries of the post-Soviet space. Yet, we rarely see articles which elaborate on higher education systemic development in its entirety. In order to investigate a given problem, researchers naturally have to limit the comprehensiveness of view. We therefore saw a niche for a book that would contribute to building the background for further studies. Context matters. That is why the design of this book reflects the diver- sity of national pathways in higher education. At the start, we were faced with several alternatives to proceed with the book composition. On the one hand, the narrative could have flowed around particular aggregated categories, with the chapters covering as many countries as possible. The topics could have been major sets of reforms, fluctuations in basic system indicators, or problems to be resolved in the context of higher education development. However, after several discussions, we selected a more demanding approach which, on the bright side, promised a deep and pro- found contribution. This book is a collection of country cases, each of them shaped in accordance with a common framework, yet each country chapter provides a comprehensive view. The introduction chapter aims to reveal a cumulative understanding of the object of study and the topic of the higher education landscape in general. Writing in this manner demanded extensive expertise from the contribu- tors as well as their being personally embedded in the contexts. The search for authors was a tricky task. The complicated process of finding academi- cally relevant people required enlisting the efforts of several layers in our professional networks. Fortunately, the idea behind the study and the ambi- tion to cover the whole set of post-Soviet countries appealed to a number of people around the globe, to whom we are thankful for their help. The states examined have gone through hard times. We did not pur- posefully pick the moment for the start of the project, but by chance the two years of the study turned out to be an extraordinary period for this part of the world. Under these conditions, the outstanding academic integrity and ethics of the authors and editors became a real asset for the project. PREFACE: CHALLENGES AND ADVANTAGES OF EXPLORING POST-SOVIET... ix The second major challenge in the fulfilment of this task was obviously the lack of data. First of all, due to a number of reasons, data is not likely to be available for the countries studied. Our retrospective view intended to involve some dynamic pictures. We faced difficulties in collecting and comparing even aggregate numbers. At the beginning we were lacking such common characteristics as number of higher education institutions and student body in private sector, funding and research performance in higher education, and so on. Moreover, investigation of the institutional landscape requires a capa- bility to differentiate the types of HEIs and their roles in the system. The wide variations between countries, especially in the size of their higher education systems, make it impossible to rely on a universalistic approach to data collection and analysis. Such an approach might have weakened the results. Due to these reasons a mixed approach was selected. The authors used both qualitative and quantitative methods. Analyses were based on a number of expert interviews, fragments of data and literature reviews. In every case, the choice of relevant techniques and methodology resulted from numerous discussions between the respective authors, edi- tors and the coordination team. We hope that this study will make one more step in the gradual move- ment towards opening up opportunities for research on the post-Soviet space built on transparent data and keen academic interest. Based on results of the project, we created a web timeline of higher education key policy events in all post-Soviet countries. We expect that the scope of this tool will expand, and it will aggregate more useful information for further work. The demand for a thorough grasp of post-Soviet higher education transformations in each former Soviet Republic seemed natural at the start. Basically, we assumed that national higher education systems reflect changes in societies and the economic and political environment.