Neoliberal Reforms in Higher Education and the Import of Institutions (original) (raw)

The implementation of neoliberal reforms in higher education coincides with the radical institutional changes in the transition from a planned to a market economy. The modernization of higher education is also connected with the concept of the “entrepreneurial” university that represents a third-generation university with an emphasis on optimization and marketing. However, economic policy aimed at reforming and developing the public sector is based on the import of institutions related to the production of public and mixed goods. In this paper, we show that neoliberal reforms threaten the welfare state in transition economies such as the Russian Federation. In addition to marketing, monetization, and commercialization, all areas of the public sector underwent an optimization policy, which primarily implied a relative reduction in the cost of producing public goods. The rhetoric of the marketing of education represents the modern state’s masked refusal to fulfill a part of its social...

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Where Soviet and neoliberal discourses meet: the transformation of the purposes of higher education in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia

This paper studies transformations in the role of higher education in Russia as represented in official Soviet and post-Soviet policy documents between the 1950s and 2013. The focus is on the categories defining the purposes and tasks of higher education in the larger context of society and economy. There is a basic dichotomy in relation to the purposes and role of higher education, between vocational training (which is seen as a determining factor in the economic development) and personal development/education (seen as a condition of social development). The balance of these two poles, economic instrumentalism and social instrumentalism, changes throughout the history. The Soviet documents emphasized the importance of both, with the predominance of the social instrumentalism. The transitional period of the late 1980s and early 1990s is characterized by increasing humanistic discourse in regard to higher education. Later post-Soviet documents, reflecting neoliberal policies, largely abandon social instrumentalism and more exclusively promote the economic role of higher education. Economic instrumentalism is the meeting point of two historical eras, with their respective ideologies and political agendas. Connecting Soviet and neoliberal discourses highlights the importance of historical legacies in regard to the economic, applied nature of higher education, and underlines the crucial role of the state, which facilitated acceptance of neoliberal agendas in Russian society. The analysis also contributes to further understanding of the nature of the neoliberal reforms globally and in post-socialist countries.

Universal higher education and positional advantage: Soviet legacies and neoliberal transformations in Russia

Higher Education, 2016

The great expansion of participation in higher education in Russia in the post-Soviet period was the layered and contradictory result of both conditions established in the Soviet period, and the structuring of reforms after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992. The Soviet government was strongly committed to the expansion of education across the country, and gender equality was achieved at that time. In the 1990s and 2000s enrolments more than doubled, though the growth of numbers has been reversed since 2008 because of demographic decline of the relevant age cohorts. Employing Trow's analysis of the growth of higher education systems and Hirsch's concept of positional goods, among other conceptual approaches, as well as statistical, national, and comparative survey data, this paper analyses social dynamics of the process of increasing participation and equalization of opportunity in Russia. The dramatic higher education expansion in Russia was largely associated with the positional value of higher education credentials, in a society in which the Soviet system of social status had been discontinued, and a new system of status was being built on the basis of post-Soviet rules (which are still evolving). Driven by family aspirations and resources, massification has largely rested on the part-privatisation of the costs of higher education, part of a neoliberal reform package common to the post-Soviet countries. However, higher education expansion has not brought about greater social equity. Expansion, fee-based financing and policy measures such as university excellence initiatives have tended to strengthen the institutional and social stratification of the higher education system, weakening social mobility and social equality.

The National Russian Model of University at the Era of Academic Capitalism

Sociology and Anthropology, 2015

The transformation of the national model of Russian University is under the influence of academic capitalism. The very same academic capitalism was born in the depth of the neoliberal capitalism. The basic principles of the neoliberalization were fully implemented within the transformation of national educational systems:-An arrangement of conditions to accumulate capital and political power in economic elite circles;-A denial of the concept of nation, and, consequently, a promotion of an idea that the government interference in economy is dangerous (in this case in the form of minimization government interference in education);-Assistance in independent and stable functioning of the whole education system including all the levels and elements (schools, institutes, universities, etc.). In Russia and other countries, this leads to the destruction of national educational systems. E. Durkheim said that if in society there are many cultures than each of them which have its own education system. G. Simmel argued that cultural diversity enriches the world community. However the implementation of neoliberal policy in the field of education under the slogan of "globalization" ignores the law and seeks to simplify the interaction between the educational systems in order to achieve clarity and transparency of market exchange. Author analyzes on the example of Russia the trends that resulted from the modernization of the education system that implements neoliberal principles and creates academic capitalism. Virtually neoliberal utopian promises in practice lead to quite the opposite, rather than expected results.

Private Higher Education in Russia: Free Enterprise Under State Control

European Education, 2007

This study examines the strategies that Russian private colleges and universities use to navigate the legal and normative pressures of the state in the free market of educational services. The tension between state control and free enterprise is analyzed through the prism of legitimacy as it is produced and maintained by the system of quality assurance. Following the crisis in higher education and society at large in the early 1990s, the system of quality assurance emerged in response to the calls for regulation and accountability of higher education institutions. Today it is a complex array of state laws, policies, and control mechanisms directed at both the public and private sectors of education. This study poses the central question: What are the strategies, approaches, and mechanisms that Dmitry Suspitsin earned his Ph.D. in higher education administration and comparative and international education at Pennsylvania State University. His research interests lie in the area of comparative and international education and organization studies. Recent publications include a chapter on private higher education in

The impact of the liberalist educational doctrine on the higher education in Russia

Perspectives of Science & Education, 2022

Problem and Purpose. The paper deals with different views on the problem of recessionary processes in the Russian higher education. The authors consider the significant impact of the educational doctrine of neoliberalism to be a significant reason for the systemic crisis of the higher education in modern Russia. The purpose of the article is to analyse the main ideological postulates of neoliberalism that address education directly and turn it into an integral part of the global economy. Materials and methods. The research materials are represented by scientific publications of Russian and foreign authors, including pedagogical and socio-political periodicals, conference materials, monographs, Internet resources. The following methods were used: source study, comparative description, comparative and linguistic analysis. Research findings. The authors note the large-scale active penetration of neoliberal ideology into the sphere of education. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of attractiveness of “human capital” and “lifelong learning” ideologemes in neoliberal interpretation, which in fact turn out to be the mechanisms for devaluation of spiritual meaning of education and its commodification. The article presents critical arguments in respect of the strengthening neoliberal position present in the activities of Russian universities: involvement in competition, signs of “academic commerce”, commodification of scientific and educational products, bureaucratisation. It is emphasised that, in the context of the structure of university education according to the business process model, students are offered the position of educational services consumer, which is hypocritically decorated as training of “cognitarians” – creative leaders of the “knowledge economy” era, but in fact – narrow specialists with a set of competences that require constant updating. Conclusion and resume. The study has shown that the problem of higher education crisis is actively discussed by the scientific and pedagogical community in the West and in Russia; the influence of economic and political processes on the traditional foundations of university education is tangibly realised. However, the search for solution to the relevant problems will take place in different directions: the West focuses more on the political leverage of transformation, while the Russian education is aimed at development within its methodological guidelines. The withdrawal from the crisis and overcoming the influence of the educational doctrine of neoliberalism is possible only through the establishment of a new ideology in Russia.

Financial and Institutional Change in Russian Higher Education

SSRN Electronic Journal, 1999

At first glance, the higher education sector may look to have embraced the challenges and pressures of moving towards a market system. However, there remain longer term issues that must be addressed if the higher education sector is to survive and ultimately prosper. This paper examines more closely the financial and legislative reforms implemented in the Russian Higher Education sector. It outlines the institutional and structural changes that have taken place in response to these changes, and the effect of the external environment on the sector. The implications for further reform and institutional change are also discussed. These issues are analysed within a framework of the New-Institutional approach to economic organisations.

The differential effect of state and market on the higher education landscape in Belarus and Russia: Soviet-type division and bifurcation

European Journal of Higher Education, 2019

This study addresses the lack of studies of diversity in post-Soviet higher education systems. It aims to examine institutional diversity in two post-Soviet countries as the result of higher state and market forces in the context of high-participation systems of higher education. The 'enrollment economy' has become the most powerful signal for higher education institutions in both countries. However, in Belarus, the conservative position of both the state and organizations, mitigates the effects of market-driven signals. The study reveals bifurcation as the key process distinguishing Russian higher education from Belarusian. While still in Russia middle-layer HEIs are not capable of changes in sectoral identity locked-in by the Soviet model.

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