System of Russian Higher Education

The majority of state institutes of higher education are regulated by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. Some of them are regulated by other state Ministries, such as the Ministry of Health Care, the Ministry of Railway Transportation, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of International Affairs and others. For examples, institutes of higher education of aviation are regulated by the state, of railway and water transport — by the corresponding Ministries; legal academies are divided between the state and the Ministry of Internal Affairs; the largest medical institutes and medical departments of universities are regulated by the state, smaller — by the Ministry of Health Care.

Non-state educational institutes can be established institutionally and legally in the forms stipulated by the Russian Federation Laws for non-profit organizations. The majority of them teach humanities, economics, and law — the disciplines that do not require expensive high-tech equipped facilities and big capital investments. Students at non-state schools need to pay for their education during the whole period of study.

There are three kinds of higher education institutions in Russia: universities, academies, and institutes. All of them realize programmes of undergraduate and graduate professional education.

1. «University» covers a wide range of fields of study, for example, technical university or classical university.

2. «Academy» differs from universities by a narrower spectrum of specialties connected with a particular industry, for example, Academy of Railway Transport, Academy of Agriculture, or Academy of Economics.

3. The status of an «Institute» requires teaching of at least one discipline.

Universities also conduct fundamental and applied research in a wide spectrum of sciences, while the academies and institutes run their scientific activities in one field of Science or Art. To hold a status of a university or an academy it is obligatory to be a leading scientific and methodological center in the field of your specialization. Institutes mainly offer the professional training. Institute also can be established as a department of a university or an academy with the aim to conduct autonomic educational or scientific activities. For example, the Institute of Social Rehabilitation of Novosibirsk State Technical University or the Institute of International Affairs and Law of Novosibirsk State Academy of Economics and Management. According to the Russian Federation Laws, there are no preferences or limitations (discrimination of) for the graduates from accredited institutes, academies and universities.

Before 1990 only classical universities had the status of «universities». There were not so many of them, only in the big regional centers, for example, Novosibirsk State University, Moscow State University, and St. Petersburg State University. All other institutes of higher education held the status of «institutes» (do not mix with Research institutes whose business is not in teaching, but in conducting research).

With the reforms of 1990s institutes of higher education got the right to reorganize their main activities and this led to mass raising the statuses from «institutes» to «academies» and «universities». This tendency changed the structure of the state system of education.

According to the statistics for the period of 1991-1996 the number of universities increased 6 times and that of academies more than 30 times. In order to raise the status from institutes to universities and academies many institutes open new departments: economics, law, business administration, management. Unfortunately, very often this does not mean that these disciplines are taught on a high professional level. It needs to be mentioned that non-state schools usually have status of institutes. There are only 6 non-state universities and 4 non-state academies in Russia now.

Accreditation: Besides the division into universities, academies and institutes, state licensing and accreditation are the most important characteristics of any institute of higher education. State license gives institution the permission to offer educational services. That means that an institution has enough well-equipped space, which will allow teaching an appropriate number of students; that it has in its staff well educated and trained lectors and teachers. This document is issued by Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. Every branch of the institute of higher education needs to get state license separately from the head institution. There are two types of accreditations in Russia: state accreditation and community accreditation.

State accreditation means correspondence between the quality of education on accredited programmes and state educational standards. Accreditation also gives the right to issue state-standard diplomas. Constant state control of the quality of educational services is legally guaranteed only for accredited schools. Institutes of higher education can be accredited for the period, which not exceeds 5 years.

Accreditation certificate is not eligible without its attachment, where accredited programmes of all levels (the Bachelor, specialist and Master), stages of education and qualifications of graduates are listed. All branches of institute of higher education should be accredited at the same time as the head institute. The names and addresses of the branches, list of accredited programmes are mentioned in the attachment. The word «state» in the name of the institute of higher education guarantees that this institute issues state standard diplomas.

The aim of community accreditation is appreciation of the level of activities of institute of higher education, which corresponds to the criteria and expectations of civic educational, professional, scientific and industrial organizations. Community accreditation does not mean financial or any other obligations from the state.

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