POSTGRADUATE TRAINING AND ACADEMIC DEGREE CERTIFICATION FOR FOREIGNERS

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyze training foreigners in Russian universities and conferring academic degrees to them during the latest five years. There has been used extensive statistical material on the system of higher education, including the level of postgraduate training and data on the network of dissertation councils. The subjects of the article include all levels of higher education, i. e. the system of certifying highly qualified scientific personnel, geographical distribution of students and postgraduates, Russian universities providing foreigners’ training and certification. The result of this research is the identification of top 10 countries using the Russian system of conferring academic candidate and doctor degrees. The study showed that 41 % of foreigners completed postgraduate studies with the defense of PhD thesis, which is twice as high as the average level of defenses in Russia (21 %). This fact can prove the necessity to increase in the medium term the number of PhD students and candidates of science in Russian universities. The study can also be a basis for developing managerial decisions at the federal level to work out the target indicators of the program «Development of the Export Potential of the Russian Education System». The article is approvingly supposed to introduce into the scientific circulation certain new factual data about the system of training and certifying higher scientific qualification staff, as provided for the foreigners.