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ТЕМА № 1 THE PROBLEMS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN RUSSIA, THE USA AND UK 

Higher education in Great Britain. 

       Students are accepted by British Universities largely on the basis of the results of their General Certificate of Education at ordinary and advanced levels. The selection procedure is rather complicated.

       A student who wants to go to university usually applies for admission before he takes his advanced level examination. First of all, he must write to the Universities Central Council on Admissions (UCCA), and they send him a form which he has to complete. On this form, he has to write the names of six universities in order of preference. He may put down only two or three names, stating that if not accepted by these universities he would be willing to go to any other. This form, together with an account of his out-of-school activities and two references, one of which must be from the headteacher of his school, is then sent back to the UCCA.

       The UCCA sends photocopies of the form to the universities concerned. Each applicant is first considered by the university admission board. In some cases the board sends the applicant a refusal. This may happen, for example, if the board receives a form in which their university is the applicant's sixth choice. As a rule, the department makes an offer according to which the candidate will be accepted on certain conditions. When the university admissions department sends the candidate a definite offer, he must express his agreement or disagreement to be admitted to the university within three days and nights.

       “Higher Education” in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which currently consists of some 96 universities and 70 or so Colleges of Higher Education, means the stage of education which follows after one obtains qualifications equivalent to the Advanced Level of the General Certificate if Education.

       Universities in Britain are divided into three types: 1. The old established universities, such as Oxford (founded 1249), Cambridge and Edinburgh. 2. The 19th century universities such as London and Manchester. 3. The new universities established after World War II, such as Essex, Lancaster, The New University of Ulster.

       Students or undergraduates can complete their first (Bachelor's) Degree in a minimum of three years. Law degrees and some others require four years of study, while medicine takes longer. Students awarded their Bachelor's Degree are called graduates.

       Universities and some colleges offer a wide range of one-year, or sometimes two-year, taught graduate courses leading to a Master's Degree.

       Universities also offer research degrees (Doctor's Degrees), which have a very limited taught element, and are in opportunity to undertake research over a period at least three years. Students working for their Master's and Doctor's Degrees are called postgraduates.

       UK universities offer full time programmes and also part-time and distance learning programmes. An academic year is divided into three terms of about 10 weeks each.  

Problems of Higher Education in UK 

       The first problem British Universities face is the problem of financing. Universities want to be freed of state controls to set their own tuition fees, this addressing their funding shortfalls (нехватка). A simple, free market solution to higher education's economic and social problems is offered: charge the rich fees and use the money to fund scholarships for the poor. The economists argue that current funding arrangement equate to a state subsidy for the middle classes. The Universities in Britain must be allowed to set their own fees and student numbers as US institutions do. The new funding regime would be phased in (постепенно вводить) over a number of years to give parents a chance to start savings. Under the plan, the Russell group universities would be modelled on Ivy League institutions such as Cornell, funded by state and private money. A move to differential fees is the only way to fix the immediate funding problems facing British institutions.

       The second problem deals with the elitism of higher education in UK. Leading universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, are failing to shed their elitist image, according to a report by MPs which reveals that a £400m drive to encourage people from the poorest backgrounds to go to university has resulted in only a marginal increase (незначительное увеличение) in applications. Universities, schools and the government are all blamed for failing to tackle the bias in applications, which means that more than twice the proportion of the richest school leavers go to university compared with those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. In the past four years, the proportion of students from the most disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds has increased by just two percentage points. Leading universities should be forced to draw up action plans with the government's higher education funding council, spelling out how they will shed their elitist image and encourage more applications from the disadvantaged.

Higher education in Russia 

       Higher education In Russia is provided by state and non-state higher education institutions (HEIs). Approximately half of the State HEIs students pay for their studies. In non-state HEIs all students have to pay tuition fees. Higher education is within the Ministry of Education and Science's juridiction. The Federal Service of Supervision in Education and Science is responsible for quality assurance in education. There are three levels of higher education: 1) incomplete higher education (2 years at least); 2) 4-year programmes leading to the Bakalavr's degree, the first final university degree; 3) postgraduate studies with duration of 1-2 years leading to the Specialist Diploma or the Magistr degree. HEIs are authorized to award the Magistr's degree after the completion of 2 years of study or the Specialist Diploma after 1 year of study following upon the Bakalavr's degree. Scientific degrees in Russia traditionally include two levels of doctoral degrees: the Candidate of Sciences (the first level, equivalent to PhD) and the Doctor of Sciences (the second, highest level). There are 721 state (including 45 regional public HEIs) and 369 accredited non-state HEIs in Russia. The Federal Agency for Education finances 338 state HEIs. The rest is financed by other Ministries or local authorities.  
 

Problems of higher education in Russia 

       Problems of higher education in Russia Due to its Soviet legacy (наследие), Russia has gained a reputation for having a well trained population and efficient educational system. The facts on the ground are obviously more ambiguous, however. The veritable “boom” of higher education and the good results of some well-known universities hide the more general fall of average performances and the devaluation of diplomas and deterioration of the quality of higher education. Efforts to reform the system are meeting both structural constraints and corruption practices within the educational community. This makes a genuine assessment of Russian degrees difficult to achieve. In addition, the “privatization” of large sections of the education system has rendered the problem of inequality of access even more acute.  
 

       Russia is in the process of migrating from its traditional tertiary education model, incompatible with existing Western academic degrees, to a modernized degree structure in line with Bologna Process model. (Russia co-signed the Bologna Declaration in 2003.) In October 2007 Russia enacted a law that replaces the traditional five-year model of education with a two-tiered approach: a four-year bachelor (Russian: бакалавр) degree followed by a two-year master's (Russian: магистр) degree.

       The move has been criticized for its merely formal approach: instead of reshaping their curriculum, universities would simply insert a BSc/BA accreditation in the middle of their standard five or six-year programs. The job market is generally unaware of the change and critics predict that a stand-alone BSc/BA diplomas will not be recognized as "real" university education in the foreseeable future, rendering the degree unnecessary and undesirable without further specialization.

       Student mobility among universities has been traditionally discouraged and thus kept at very low level; there are no signs that formal acceptance of Bologna process will help students seeking better education. Finally, while the five-year specialist training was previously free to all students, the new MSc/MA stage is not. The shift forces students to pay for what was free to the previous class; the cost is unavoidable because the BSc/BA degree alone is considered useless. Defenders of Bologna process argue that the final years of the specialist program were formal and useless: academic schedules were relaxed and undemanding, allowing students to work elsewhere. Cutting the five-year specialist program to a four-year BSc/BA will not decrease the actual academic content of most of these programs.

Higher education in the USA 

       Out of more than three million students who graduate from high school each year, about one million go on for higher education. A college at a leading university might receive applications from two percent of these high school graduates, and then accept only one out of every ten who apply. Successful applicants at such colleges are usually chosen on the basis of a) their high school records; b) recommendations from their high school teachers; c) their scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SATs).

         The system of higher education in the United States comprises three categories of institutions: 1) the university, which may contain a) several colleges for undergraduate students seeking a bachelor's (four-year) degree and b) one or more graduate schools for those continuing in specialized studies beyond the bachelor's degree to obtain a master's or a doctoral degree, 2) the technical training institutions at which high school graduates may take courses ranging from six months to four years in duration and learn a wide variety of technical skills, from hair styling through business accounting to computer programming; and 3) the two-year, or community college, from which students may enter many professions or may transfer to four-year colleges.

         Any of these institutions, in any category, might be either public or private, depending on the source of its funding. Some universities and colleges have, over time, gained reputations for offering particularly challenging courses and for providing their students with a higher quality of education. The factors determining whether an institution is one of the best or one of the lower prestige are quality of the teaching faculty; quality of research, facilities; amount of funding available for libraries, special programs, etc.; and the competence and number of applicants for admission, i. e. how selective the institution can be in choosing its students.

         The most selective are the old private north-eastern universities, commonly known as the Ivy League, include Harvard Radcliffe, (Cambridge, Mass., in the urban area of Boston), Yale University (New Haven, Conn. between Boston and New York), Columbia College (New York), Princeton University (New Jersey), Brown University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, University of Pennsylvania. With their traditions and long established reputations they occupy a position in American university life rather like Oxford and Cambridge in England, particularly Harvard and Yale. The Ivy League Universities are famous for their graduate schools, which have become intellectual elite centers. 
 

Problems of Higher education in the USA 

       Universities are criticized that they use SATs results while admitting students. In defense of using the examinations as criteria for admission, administrators say that the SATs provide a fair way for deciding whom to admit when they have ten or twelve applicants for every first-year student seat.

       The cost of higher education have grown too far and too fast, and that financial aid often does not end up in the hands of the truly needy students.

       Too many high school students are under-prepared for college; consequently, they fail to thrive and are less likely to learn the skills they need to get good jobs and lead quality lives.