“Optimizing” Higher Education in Russia. David Mandel

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      ibidem-Press, Stuttgart

      Contents

       1. Introduction

       2. Overview of State Policy

       a. The Soviet Period

       b. The “Wild Nineties”

       c. 2000-2012: Return of the State

       d. 2012-18: The May Decrees and the “Road Map”

       3. The Condition of University Teachers Following the “Optimizing” Reforms of 2012-18

       a. Employment

       1. Massive Job Cuts

       2. Permanent Probation

       b.Remuneration

       1.Salary Levels

       2. “Efficient Contracts”

       c. Workloads

       d. Power and Academic Freedom

       1. Exclusion from Governance

       2.Restrictions on Freedom to Teach and Conduct Research

       3.Repression of Union Activists and Other “Troublemakers”

       4.Restriction of Freedom Outside of Professional Duties

       e.Corruption in the University Milieu

       1.Bribe-taking from Students

       2.The Publications Business

       3.“False Dissertations”

       4.Raspil

       5.Morale

       4. “Universitetskaya solidarnost’“

       a.Origins

       b. Founding Positions and Strategic Orientations

       c. Inauspicious Circumstances

       5. UniSol at MFTI

       a. Origins

       b. The Initiative Group

       c. Formation of the Union and Its First Steps

       d. Open Letters

       e. Partial Victories

       f. The High Point

       g. The Administration‘s Counter-Attacks

       6. Rethinking Strategy: By Way of Conclusion

       Bibliography

       Scholarly Publications

       Union and Related Internet Sources

       Mass Media

       Government Documents

       Statistics

       Others

1. Introduction

In 2012, soon after his election to a third presidential term as president, following a four-year stint as prime minister (to avoid modifying the constitution), and in the wake of an unprecedented wave of popular protests, Vladimir Putin issued his “May Decrees.” Notable among them was the government’s commitment to increase the salaries of doctors, scientific researchers and university teachers to double the average in their respective regions by 2018.1 But then on December 30 of that year, the government issued a “road map” for education, revealing that the salary increases in higher education would be paid for, not by significant new government funding, but by “optimization,” which would eliminate 44% of the current teaching positions in higher education. This was justified in part by a forecasted drop in student enrolment.2

      Thus opened a new, accelerated period of reform of higher education. This book examines the impact of these reforms on the condition of Russia’s СКАЧАТЬ