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Government plans to close struggling institutions and increase funding to the best. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, demand for academic degrees has soared, and the number of public and private universities has doubled, to around 1,100. But Russia’s science output has not increased accordingly, and higher-education experts and employers have long voiced concerns over the poor quality of many university programs. Insiders suggest that no more than 50 Russian institutions are up to international standards. After his election as president in March, Vladimir Putin decreed an overhaul of higher education while promising to increase university funding gradually over the next decade. To identify weak universities, the Ministry of Science and Education commissioned an external audit of almost 600 public higher-education institutions. The results, leaked last month, made for depressing reading. Almost 500 of the institutions — 102 universities and 374 local branches — were found wanting, on the basis of criteria such as the quality of students, research intensity and productivity, and the amount of teaching space. About 40 of Russia’s top universities, already classed as elite institutions by the government, were not included in the review. Twenty institutions, including the Moscow State University for the Humanities (MSUH) and the Moscow State Evening Metallurgical Institute, were found to be so severely below par that the auditors recommended that they should be either closed or merged with more proficient institutions. Around 100 other universities are to be maintained but need to “optimize” their teaching and research performance, the auditors said. The ministry has already asked these institutions to submit development plans outlining how they intend to improve their performance, and a decision will be made about their future in April. The audit has created a stir among Russian academics. Critics say that niche universities such as the MSUH — which the reviewers have labeled ‘ineffective’ — concentrate on teaching rather than scientific research, so it was unfair to judge them on research performance. “One should have been more thoughtful in designing the criteria,” says Isak Froumin, a senior education specialist with the Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow, and former leader of the World Bank education program in Russia. But several analysts and researchers contacted by Nature agree that science and innovation are likely to benefit as the reforms free up money to strengthen programs in the surviving universities.
(Fonte: Q. Schiermeier, nature.com 17-12-2012)
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