Paul Goble
Staunton, Dec. 29 – The Russian Ministry of Labor and Social Security has prepared a national ranking of the employment rates of graduates from educational institutions, a survey that will be used to identify both the 100 best institutions by this metric and the 100 worst and ultimately lead to the reorganization or closure of some of the latter.
The idea behind this survey, Sergey Komkov says, is both reasonable and consistent with the directions for Russian higher education that Vladimir Putin has called for; but there is a great danger that such a survey will be misused and hurt many federal subjects immediately and Russia as a whole eventually (svpressa.ru/economy/article/497072/).
The vice president of the Education for All Movement says that such a ranking is inherently problematic not only because the higher educational system in Russia is multi-tiered with schools in the megalopolises serving the country as a whole and those in the regions serving primarily the regions.
Such surveys ignore that distinction and thus understate the role of regional universities and overstate that of those in the big cities. To the extent that this survey leads to reorganizations or even closures of universities in the regions, they will suffer disproportionately, Komkov continues.
But there is another and more serious problem: such surveys which focus on employment immediately upon graduation ignore the fact that education is not just about the first job graduates can get but lifetime long. Many who might not find it easy to get a first job may prove to be critical to the development of Russia over the longer term.
In short, Komkov argues, the reasons for such surveys are obvious; but the dangers they pose need to be kept in mind before such rankings are used in ways that will hurt the regions and the country’s future.
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