Move towards Bologna Process

Russia is in the process of migrating from its traditional tertiary education model, incompatible with existing Western academic degrees, to a modernized degree structure in line with the Bologna Process model. (Russia co-signed the Bologna Declaration in 2003.) In October 2007 Russia enacted a law that replaces the traditional five-year model of education with a two-tiered approach: a four-year bachelor (Russian: бакалавр) degree followed by a two-year master's (Russian:магистр, magistr) degree.

The move has been criticised for its merely formal approach: instead of reshaping their curriculum, universities would simply insert a BSc/BA accreditation in the middle of their standard five or six-year programmes. The job market is generally unaware of the change and critics predict that stand-alone BSc/BA diplomas will not be recognised as "real" university education in the foreseeable future, rendering the degree unnecessary and undesirable without further specialisation. Institutions like MFTI or MIFI have practiced a two-tier breakdown of their specialist programmes for decades and switched to Bologna process designations well in advance of the 2007 law, but an absolute majority of their students complete all six years of MSc/MA (formerly specialist) curriculum, regarding BSc/BA stage as useless in real life.

Student mobility among universities has been traditionally discouraged and thus kept at very low level; there are no signs that formal acceptance of the Bologna Process will help students seeking better education. Finally, while the five-year specialist training was previously free to all students, the new MSc/MA stage is not. The shift forces students to pay for what was free to the previous class; the cost is unavoidable because the BSc/BA degree alone is considered useless. Defenders of the Bologna Process argue that the final years of the specialist programme were formal and useless: academic schedules were relaxed and undemanding, allowing students to work elsewhere. Cutting the five-year specialist programme to a four-year BSc/BA will not decrease the actual academic content of most of these programmes.

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