Higher Education in Russia by Yaroslav Kuzminov and Maria Yudkevich

Abstract

Reviewed by: Higher Education in Russia by Yaroslav Kuzminov and Maria Yudkevich Stephen Webber Kuzminov, Yaroslav and Yudkevich, Maria. Higher Education in Russia. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2022. xxxvi + 389 pp. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $59.95: £44.50 (paperback & e-book). The societal, political and economic changes introduced in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev opened the way to attempts to reform the Soviet education system, both from above, and also through bottom-up efforts of innovators working at the classroom level. Changes were also seen, in the late Soviet period and into the post-Soviet era, at institutional level, in the higher education (HE) sphere (in what had been highly-centralized system to that point), including the introduction of new, independent higher education institutions (HEIs). The motives for change were seemingly clear — a pressing need to modernize the higher education system, release it from ideological control and constraints, reinvigorate disciplines (particularly the social sciences) and introduce new fields of study necessary for the transition to the market economy, instil a spirit of academic freedom in line with the democratic transformations to which the governing elites had apparently committed the country's path forward. One such new HEI was the Higher School of Economics (HSE), established in 1992, with Evgenii Yasin (Minister for the Economy 1994–97) and Yaroslav Kuzminov (rector of HSE from 1992 to 2021) playing the key roles in setting up the new university — which has since gone on to be a key institution in the Russian system, with a headquarters in Moscow and three additional campuses in Russia. Kuzminov, co-author of the volume under review along with Maria Yudkevich (a vice rector at HSE and author of numerous works on HE in Russia) has been at the core of higher education sector reforms — including the transition to the Unified State Examination taken by school-leavers as the entry mechanism to higher education (away from institution-based entry procedures that were rife with corrupt practices), and the entry of the Russian Federation into the Bologna Process. The authors of the volume were therefore able to draw on long and close experience of developments in Russian higher education when preparing this volume. [End Page 787] The book begins with two chapters covering the historical background to the contemporary system, focusing on the development of Russian higher education from the establishment of the Academy of Sciences in 1725 and subsequent expansion of the system in the nineteenth century (with reforms mirroring the swings between liberalization, conservatism and repression seen in Russia as a whole during this time), and under Soviet rule in the period 1917–91. The authors provide an effective overview of the key features that shaped the system in its formative years, and which have continued to exert a strong influence ever since. These include the role of the State in influencing (controlling) the organization, resourcing and content of higher education; the centralized features of the system (including the commonality of curricula across the country, the requirements for HEIs to train students in line with the needs of the State and key sectors of the economy, the disbalanced focus on the first mission of universities in teaching and learning, coupled with separation of the second mission of research and neglect of the third mission of societal engagement). The remaining seven chapters of the book focus on the contemporary Russian higher education system, tracing the developments seen since 1991 in the spheres of Governance and Resources, school-to-higher education transition of students and their subsequent experience of HE studies, the academic profession, the research role of universities, the organization of university activities and the transition to a 'project approach' and the internationalization of Russian higher education. This wide-ranging review, supported by extensive referencing to statistical data, allows the reader to gain an informed perspective on the extent to which such initiatives as the 5-100 programme (aimed at establishing a constant presence of at least five Russian HEIs in the global top 100 rankings by 2020) have been effective with regard to the institutions involved. As the authors note across the review, the legacy of the past trajectories in Russian and...