A Good Idea, but What Happens after Graduation?

On January 20, 2014, the Agency of Strategic Initiatives and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation presented the ‘Global Education’ programme, which will allow Russian citizens to study in leading global universities’ postgraduate programmes at public expense. Irina Abankina, Director of the HSE Institute for Educational Studies, speculates on the future of the programme.

Education for young specialists abroad at public expense is not a Russian invention. The Chinese government, along with some other South-Asian countries run similar programmes. In Scotland every citizen has the right to state financial support of their education not only in Great Britain, but in any university around the world. I believe that the experience of countries which send their specialists to study abroad proves the efficiency of such practices.

I also believe it’s good that state support will be provided for high-level programmes – master’s and doctoral. These programmes have the highest quality internationally. Our students will get an opportunity to participate in research supervised by leading experts and carry out their projects using cutting edge equipment. They will come back to Russia as perfectly trained professionals.

But some details of the ‘Global Education’ programme raise concerns.

For example, it is supposed to provide support for just 3,000 people over three years. This is very few when compared with similar projects in other countries. The more people study abroad, the better the result, and a thousand people a year is a mere drop in the ocean. The competition for state support will be huge. When you select one out of three or five candidates, it’s possible to give an objective and reasonable evaluation. But if over one hundred applications for each place are examined as part of the process, usually corruption and chance take over. It’s virtually impossible to truly select the best in such circumstances.

There is another problem which has remained unconsidered so far. Russia does not acknowledge the degrees of all international universities. So what happens if a student chooses a university whose degree is not acknowledged in Russia? His education will be unacknowledged? Will he be asked to give the money back?

Finally, the programme requirements say that after their education, students will have to go back to Russia and work here for three years – either in research, business, or the public sector. If they fail to do this, they’ll have to give the money back. It means that it will be necessary to provide vacancies for those who are coming back – but what if the employers don’t want to hire them? Or if there are people abroad who want to hire them and offer to reimburse their education? It seems to me that the programme developers haven’t taken into account the possibility of competition for its best graduates.

So, the initiative is very timely and reasonable, but there is a danger that its implementation will be complicated by certain details.

Irina Abankina, Director of the HSE Institute for Educational Studies