The endless Bologna process

The loud statement of the Ministry of Education and Science about the rejection of the Bologna system has not yet acquired a clear outline. The criteria for a new “unique model of the Russian higher education system” have been discussed by the professional community since May. Nevertheless, officials, rectors and employers do not have a common position on which faculties require a five-year specialist. And Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev even said that “a demonstrative rejection of the current system of higher education in Russia would be pointless.” The Ministry of Education and Science “plans” to submit a “model” of the new system by the end of the year.

On Tuesday, the head of the Ministry of Education, Sergei Kravtsov, suggested studying the possibility of transferring the system of teacher education to a specialty. He acknowledged that this decision may have its pros and cons, and asked the pedagogical community to get involved in the work. The press service of the department on Tuesday found it difficult to disclose the details of the minister’s proposal. But it is obvious that this is the next stage of departure from the Bologna system, which was announced at the end of May by the head of the Ministry of Education and Science Valery Falkov. Then he told Kommersant that Russia would develop its own – “unique” – model of higher education.

At the end of June, ideas for the reform of Russian education were discussed in the State Duma at parliamentary hearings. However, no clear specifics and unique proposals were presented then. It was mainly about the priority of a five-year specialist for a number of faculties and about tightening the requirements for admission to the “Bologna” master’s program (see “Kommersant” dated June 27, 2022). Then the Ministry of Education and Science announced that in the autumn they would present a set of measures to create a new system of higher education, which should replace the Bologna one.

But there has been no specifics on this issue since then. Moreover, the day before, on October 3, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting of the presidium of the Council for Science and Education that “a demonstrative rejection of the current system of higher education in Russia would be pointless.” According to him, the existing three-level system of higher education in the country takes into account different experiences, and also “combines the traditions of the Soviet and even pre-revolutionary higher education with the requirements of the modern world and digital reality.” “Therefore, any changes in the system of higher education must be carried out taking into account what has been done, and, of course, elementary common sense – to preserve everything valuable from the experience already gained, without going to extremes,” he summed up (quoted by TASS) .

The head of the Duma Committee on Science and Higher Education, Sergei Kabyshev, told Kommersant that options were discussed at the council meeting, including those proposed at parliamentary hearings. “The specialty will expand in engineering, in biotechnical specialties, which are new and in demand,” he says. “But there will be no automatic replacement of a bachelor’s degree with a specialist. There will be a focus on practice, on employers, to meet current and future needs.” According to him, it is still premature to talk about specifics, because there is still no common position on certain specialties. He also noted that specific proposals will be prepared by the end of the year.

MIPT President, Chairman of the Council of Rectors of Moscow and the Moscow Region Nikolai Kudryavtsev drew the attention of Kommersant that it had not previously been proposed to completely abandon all the attributes of the Bologna system. It is about leaving the best and adjusting to the specifics of the country. “This topic is not on the agenda of the Russian Union of Rectors,” he says. “But at the meetings of the Moscow Union of Rectors, we are busy with more mundane issues, such as mobilization.”

“Now a difficult situation has developed, and many things need to be dealt with, but we do not forget this issue,” says Anatoly Alexandrov, president of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, vice president of the Russian Union of Rectors. He recalls that not all the university community in the early 2000s supported the transition to the Bologna system: “A lot of things changed during this time, we adapted. We managed to maintain a specialty in a number of complex specialties. We have rebuilt the system, and it works. And now we have set the task of choosing the best that is in it, but this does not mean that we should break what we have today, this is stupid. The education system is conservative, it has no right to shirk from corner to corner and must be built deliberately and balancedly.”

According to him, universities are now studying existing training programs, analyzing which specialties are sufficient for a bachelor’s degree, which require only a specialist, and which should have several options. At the same time, the interlocutor of Kommersant in one metropolitan university says that they practically do not discuss the parameters of the new system with the rectors.

“At the moment, together with the professional community, a new layout of the federal state educational standard is being developed, which will take into account all the latest changes in legislation. Including the development of two or more qualifications and the possibility of individual trajectories of students, the establishment of a single subject core at the level of general professional competencies,” Kommersant was told in the press service of the Ministry of Education and Science. “The layout is planned to be submitted by the end of the year.” The department assured that all proposals for the development of the higher education system “are being discussed with the participation of representatives of the country’s leading universities within the framework of the working groups created by the Ministry of Education and Science.”

Anna Vasilyeva