How will Russia handle the Bologna Process?

Russia joined the Bologna Process in 2003 and is in the process of actually transforming its higher education
system to make it compatible with Bologna principles. In particular, Russia has essentially moved to the two-
tier, bachelor’s-master’s or four-plus-two year system. The actual transformation is yet to happen, but all the
legal foundations are in place. Universities that want to build internationally competitive, and internationally
compatible, undergraduate and masters programs have all the necessary tools.

The switch makes real sense. The Bologna Process, which started in 1999, is now a union of
about 50 countries, including most European states, as they try to establish a unified higher
education area, capable of competing with North America.

However, Russia’s integration into the Bologna Process often receives criticism from inside the
country. One major problem that people cite is that the Russian job market is not yet ready to
consider bachelor’s degree holders as full graduates.

It is not entirely reasonable to make this claim. Although the Russian labor market does indeed
generally consider four-year programs as “incomplete” higher education, the argument becomes
problematic when examining the detail. It should be noted, by way of comparison, that US
employers are entirely comfortable hiring graduates of four-year-long college courses. The key
issue in Russia is that the government continues to support a huge number of students
financially in their fifth and sixth year of university study. Yet all parties — employers, students
and the government alike — continue to ignore the reality that the majority of students start
working from their third year onwards.

The fact that Russia’s students can combine work with their “full-time study” at master’s level
implies that in the current market the five- or six-year degrees at Russia’s higher educational
institutions only provide a “signalling” function. The students can get as many skills and as
much knowledge in three or four years but they want to stay on to give the impression — to
signal — to their employers that they are willing and able to obtain as much education as
possible. This in turn signals their willingness and ability to work under pressure.

Once the Bologna system becomes more commonplace, employers will start recognizing the
best college brands. Russian employers will also prefer college or university graduates to
graduates of master’s programs. Indeed, college graduates are the students who are smart
enough to understand that they benefit from taking on a full-time job to learn which master’s
program they should choose at a later stage. This will form a similar pattern to the early hiring
that now takes place, when employers prefer to hire students in their third or fourth years, rather
than after graduation. The difference is that the “Bologna ideology” will eventually become
dominant: It will be normal to find a job after a bachelor’s degree rather than go on to study for a
master’s.

There are of course other arguments levelled at the Bologna Process and what is perceived to
be its adverse effect on the wider system.
One widespread complaint amounts to opponents of the system warning that the two-tiered
system will lead to the destruction of the traditional Soviet model, which has proven to be
excellent. This is all the more so since some European higher educational institutions have
seen slipping standards and a broadening of entry requirements, or, for example in the United
Kingdom, the wholesale reclassification of the polytechnics in the early 1990s.

In reality, degrees from leading Soviet universities have been recognized in the West, without
the need for any kind of Bologna Process. Incidentally, it is interesting that at many of these
institutions the educational process was indeed built according to Bologna principles. Take the
famous Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, or Phystech, as an example. At Phystech,
there is effectively a combination of a broad undergraduate college and a set of specialized
master’s programs. The undergraduate students take the same program in their early years and
specialize only at the master’s-equivalent levels. Furthermore, the master’s programs are very
research intensive as students spend most of their time in the research institutes of the Russian
Academy of Science. In fact this is exactly how the bachelor’s-master’s system works in the
leading U.S. research universities. Therefore, it is no coincidence that education at Phystech
lasts six years and that it converted to the bachelor’s-master’s system (four years plus two years)
many years ago, without waiting for federal legislation.
Incidentally, the main argument in favor of the Bologna Process is not that it appeals to the best
traditions of Soviet education, but that it is better predisposed to the realities of the
contemporary world — characterized by high uncertainty and dynamism. In this world, it makes
no sense to compel a 17-year-old to choose a narrow, specialized subject, study it for five years,
and then never study it again. It is much more logical to give students a broader education at
undergraduate level. This provides the skills that are necessary for obtaining more specialized
education later on. Student needs to be able to analyze information, learn to form and defend
their arguments, set out tasks, conduct independent research and analyze the results.
Knowledge changes so fast that the simple memorization of texts and formulae is perfectly
useless. It is crucial to be able to know how to find and use new information and how to derive
formulae and build formal or informal models.

The master’s degree is a specialized degree for more mature professionals who already know
what they want to learn. As such, it is absolutely crucial to offer students the chance to change
course — and even institution — as they move from bachelor’s to master’s; it is all the more
useful to gain work experience before commencing a master’s in order to understand better
one’s career preferences.

Some people argue that the implementation of the Bologna Process in Russia just offers a
crafty way of cutting state funding for higher education: The government is not obliged to pay for
master’s level degrees. This argument does not hold water. Over the last few years, state
subsidies for higher education have risen by 10 percent in real terms on an individual student
basis. The number of government-financed slots is now 420 students per 10,000 citizens. This
is much higher than is stipulated by law 170, which covers this area of educational funding.
Furthermore, such support is provided to both undergraduate and master’s students.
The adoption of the two-tier system is certainly a step in the right direction. It will automatically lead to
the requirement of the implementation of an independent evaluation system for admissions for master’s
programs, resembling to a certain extent the American GRE and GMAT. This in turn will create a
mechanism for evaluating the quality of both master’s and bachelor’s programs. The Bologna Process
gives Russian universities an instrument for bilateral student exchanges and therefore wakes them up to
the realities of the European educational system. It provides Russian universities with opportunities to
create new programs, both broad undergraduate programs and specialized master’s programs. But
ultimately it depends on the universities themselves as to whether they will use these opportunities to
improve the quality of Russian higher education.

Source http://www.themoscowtimes.com/careercenter/JC/417853/eng/article/417892.html