Galina Akhmerova: ‘We need a balance between the good of the Soviet Union and the requirements of modern world’

Will the Soviet system of education for our children be returned and whether we should completely abandon the principles of the Bologna one?


Galina Akhmerova: ‘We need a balance between the good of the Soviet Union and the requirements of modern world’ Photo: courtesy of Galina Akhmerova for realnoevremya.ru

Today, there are more and more calls in Russia to abandon the Bologna system and return to the Soviet system of children's education. Its advantages include uniform requirements and a competent presentation of school material, which students assimilated much better. The pros and cons of both concepts in the author's column for Realnoe Vremya are analysed by the founder of the Darwin Foundation for the Development of Accessibility of Modern Education and the creator of Round platform, Galina Akhmerova.

Transition to the Bologna system

If you want to change the world, start working with young people. And I am glad that the issue of restructuring the education system has been actively raised recently, because there are obviously a lot of problems.

In the president's address to the Federal Assembly in February 2023, the task of moving away from the Bologna system, which has been adopted in Russia since 2003, was once again formulated.

Let's analyse the main principles of the Bologna system:

A student could freely change the university in the process of studying, including, for example, for a semester or a year to go abroad to study. In addition, the possibility of an independent choice of disciplines for study was provided.

Photo: Dmitry Reznov/realnoevremya.ru

It seems to sound quite reasonable, what went wrong?

From the very beginning, Russia's accession to the Bologna system was criticised by teachers, university rectors and some deputies. At that time, the parent community and employers did not yet understand the depth of the changes taking place, so a dozen years later we are already facing the consequences.

Here are the main arguments against the Bologna system:

Photo: Dmitry Reznov/realnoevremya.ru

In addition, the goals that were set when joining the Bologna system did not come true.

Diplomas of Russian universities were not recognised in Western countries without additional procedures. Somewhere the university did not issue a bilingual document, somewhere the country requested additional apostille and so on.

Dmitry Evstafyev, a political expert and HSE professor, has recently commented in an interview on the main differences between the Bologna system and the Soviet one:

“The Bologna system is neither about education, nor about knowledge, nor about qualifications, it is about money. This is a vacuum cleaner sucking a lot of money out of parents for 12+ years. Diploma stamping system. A system about skills and competencies. While the Soviet-Russian system was about knowledge. The Bologna system is an educational pyramid that always has a beneficiary. Outflow of the best cadres to the West.”

Advantages of the Soviet education system

In the Soviet system, the role of the teacher (mentor) as the main source of knowledge was preserved. According to experts of those years, a schoolboy and a student received up to 80% of knowledge with the participation of a teacher. According to the Bologna system, the teacher rather performs the role of a navigator, providing a passage to knowledge. Students are taught to learn because this skill is relevant in a dynamic world.

The student learns how to keep track of current sources, how to independently extract information and critically evaluate it. At the same time, he, of course, can turn to the teacher for advice and expert opinion.

The Bologna system includes about 70% of the student's independent work, reducing communication with teachers. And can we imagine that a doctor, an engineer or a teacher studied without communicating with teachers who directly transfer their experience and skills?

This is the main difference between the Soviet system.

Photo: Dmitry Reznov/realnoevremya.ru

What, in my opinion, was good about the Soviet education system:

The Bologna system as a whole is focused on competition in the labour market and does not guarantee anything after graduation (for both students and employers). But it allows students to look for themselves in other directions and easily switch to other activities.

Today, a course towards education reform has been outlined, the path will not be fast. Here we need to find a balance between all the good things that happened in the Soviet Union, the standardisation of processes over the past 20 years and the requirements of the modern world.

It is important that reformers, taking into account the needs of today's youth, take into account both the shortcomings of past decisions and the merits of their choice.

Автор: Galina Akhmerova
Reference

The author's opinion may not coincide with the position of the editorial board of Realnoe Vremya.


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