The Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education is preparing a regulatory framework to introduce a new indicator-based accreditation system for universities. Currently, institutions are forced to obtain state accreditation every six years and they regularly complain about the laboriousness and complexity of the process.
The new system will be based on the assessment of universities against indicators, rather than on their programmes as under the current system. The ministry has already published the draft indicators that will be key to the new model of state accreditation, which should be operational from 1 March 2022.
State accreditation in Russia aims to measure and recognise higher education quality against Federal State Educational Standards, under a federal law that has been in effect since 2012. State accreditation is conducted by the Federal Service for the Supervision of Education and Science or Rosobrnadzor, a statutory body that oversees the sector.
According to Russia’s National Centre for Public Accreditation, state accreditation is mandatory for all higher education institutions. If successful, a university is awarded accreditation for six years. In the case of non-compliance with the standards, Rosobrnadzor can, among other actions, order an unscheduled inspection, or suspension or withdrawal of accreditation.
The system of accreditation allows universities to issue a state diploma, as well as to guarantee students respite from the army and other benefits.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Science and Higher Education commented: “To maintain and develop the quality of education, we plan to conduct regular monitoring of universities for compliance with the specified indicators.”
Under the new system, the ministry plans to assess the average Unified State Exam (USE) score of incoming students, as well as the level of employment of graduates. The USE is a series of examinations that every student must pass after graduating from school in order to enter a university or a professional college.
Indicators will include: the “dynamics of competitive selection” over the past three years; the number of Olympiad winners and 100-point applicants (as a USE result) among students; the number of publications in leading domestic or foreign scientific publications; the amount of funds received from scientific activities; the rate of renewal of material and the technical base (at least once every three years); and “the provision of educational process with teaching staff”.
Backdrop
In 2018, as reported by University World News, 50 of Russia’s largest universities called on President Vladimir Putin to scrap the state accreditation system, calling it outdated, overly bureaucratic and failing to meet its initial objectives.
In an official letter to Putin, the universities said that the current system was implemented in 2012 and over the subsequent five years cleared the market of unscrupulous institutions.
However, their petition said, as reported by University World News: “In the absence of an established system of independent assessment of the quality of higher education in Russia, state accreditation is often limited by only checking the conditions necessary for the implementation of educational activities, repeating the licensing procedures, being purely documentary.
“Experts conducting inspections often do not have sufficient qualification and reputation for making independent decisions regarding the scientific potential of a particular university and the quality of its educational programmes.”
Happy noises from universities
Representatives from two leading universities welcomed the new accreditation approach.
Denis Guts, deputy head of academic affairs at the Siberian Federal University (SibFU), commented to University World News: “We have never lived in the concept of ‘once every six years’ before.
“SibFU implements about 500 basic educational programmes, which are constantly ‘tuned’ in accordance with existing realities and the requirements of potential employers. We are not just ready for ‘accreditation in a new way’, but already achieved a similar system – but with more stringent conditions.
“At the Siberian Federal University, the project ‘Hybrid-adaptive management system of educational programmes’ is being implemented. The essence of the approach is precisely that education cannot be linear and frozen, but instead of this, hybrid and flexible and able to adapt to current realities.”
Anyway, said Guts, the accreditation system being introduced by the ministry “is assessed positively and, moreover, looks like a trend and a timely response to changes in society”.
An expert at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), one of Russia’s leading universities, is also optimistic about the state initiative.
Nadezhda Knyaginina, a research fellow of the Education Law Laboratory in the Institute of Education at HSE, told University World News in an interview: “It should be understood that the current specific indicators, which were prepared by the state, are already a big step forward compared to how it was implemented in the previous accreditation model.
“Previously, the university had to guess which line of dozens, if not hundreds, of federal, extremely abstract state educational standards could lead to the loss of its accreditation. The current link to monitoring changes the situation: the indicators are fixed, they are defined specifically, and they are the same for everyone.
“This means that a situation is not allowed where one university loses its accreditation for something that, in other universities, is not seriously considered as a violation by our regulators. We are moving away from subjective assessments.”
Source: University World News
Comments are closed.