Hello everyone. Rather than two posts in one day, today’s single post combines two quite different topics. Read on…

The first topic is about higher education in contemporary Russia. I’ve just come across the work of Daria Luchinskaya, a PhD student at the University of Warwick, who has some really interesting points to make about the modernisation of the system. Some of these are handily summarised in this article on University World News.

Having done a little research myself into the post-Soviet higher education system, I agree that Luchinskaya has covered the key points facing the Russian system:

• state funding levels
• rise (and future demise?) of private higher education providers
• the pressures of internationalisation, such as aligning the education system to the Bologna process, and staff and student mobility
• making the system more competitive e.g. through the creation of federal and national research universities

It would be interesting to see what Luchinskaya has to say about how the current system and its challenges are interepeted in Russia, both by students and by other ‘stakeholders’. For example, I have read that employers are sceptical about students coming out of university with Bologna-friendly degrees, wondering how a three year Bachelor’s degree could be equal to the former system of four or five years of undergraduate study.

The second ‘prong’ of the post is about communications. Can I ask for your help?

Could you pass on details of the blog to others that you think would be interested, and encourage them to sign up for email updates? I’ve just joined academia.edu in a bid to enhance my own network, but your assistance would be very much appreciated.

And please, please leave some comments! Some people have been kind enough to email/text me about the blog, but it would be great to get some discussion going here.

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading.