About author
In the journal issue dedicated to the university we can’t help discussing the problem of reforms in the Russian higher education. The reforms that have been now continuing for decades have materially altered the educational environment. In this section we focus on the reforms influence on the historical education.
The questions were suggested by the university employees, mainly, the federal ones. The key reform parameters are covered by the questions:
1. Do you agree with the statement that we are witnessing in Russia the process of replacement “Humboldtian” university model with scientific research (“Anglo-Saxon”) model?
2. 10 years ago new university forms appeared, i.e. federal and national. Have these become well established, in your opinion? How did university change due to this reform from the educational, scientific and administrative point of view?
3. Last decades the Russian education has been implementing two-level educational system that produces masters and bachelors. Has master’s degree program become more than “a longer way” to “specialist” for historical education? How do you evaluate performance of modern bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in historical education?
4. How was the historical educational environment changed by multiple changes of state standards? While the second standard (State Educational Standard or “GOS”) suggested a fixed number of subjects and teaching units, the standard of “three plus” generation (Federal State Educational Standard for Higher Education or “FGOS VO”) does not have even a tentative subjects list. Doesn’t this variability destroy single historical educational environment?
5. How would you characterize the arrangement of scientific work in universities and evaluation of its efficiency with the help of scientometric parameters, i.e. number of rating publications, grants and citation indices? How relevant, in your opinion, is the support of university researches through grants to the objectives of modern historical science?
Six professors took part in this discussion, including five professor of history, one of sociology and one of culture studies from three federal universities.
Materials of this discussion help us understand the development of the educational historical environment; grasp the influence of new forms and institutes on humanities education. The professors have different attitude towards the educational reform. On the one hand, in the modern world, it is not possible to keep the classical university intact. On the other hand, the format and the quality of the reforms are questionable. The aim of the discussion is to analyze influence of reforms on historical educational environment, to understand how they change historical science and the researchers themselves.
Keywords: higher education reform in Russia, historical education, federal universities, two-level model of higher education, state standards of higher education, the organization of historical science.