Moscow State University rector Viktor Sadovnichy (left) and Russian President Vladimir Putin
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Moscow and St. Petersburg State Universities Rise above the Rest
Moscow and St. Petersburg State Universities will soon obtain special status by order of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kommersant has learned. The government has been instructed to prepare a project to turn the institutions into “federal universities.” According to information obtained by Kommersant, the government intends to double their financing and provide them maximum commercial and educational freedom. Thus, the government will establish a new ranked system for financing institutions of higher education.
Lyudmila Verbitskaya, rector of St. Petersburg State University, holds that her school, like Moscow State University, has long deserved special status. “Our university is the oldest in Russia. MSU appeared 31 years later. These are classical universities with an academic basis. By all ratings and indicators, the number of professors and scientific schools, we clearly lead and in reality have a special status that we want to confirm with documentation,” she told Kommersant. The rectors of the two universities approached the president with this idea together. “The president instructed the government to present it proposals about a special status by April 1,” Verbitskaya said.
Minister of Education and Science Andrey Fursenko confirmed that, by the president's instruction, his agency is developing the project for the federal universities. “The concept consists of the universities with special status being free in economic and financial activities and in determining educational programs. They will not be subject to state educational standards,” the minister told Kommersant.
The newspaper has learned that the government will increase the level of state financing for the universities. Their budgets will be doubled and additional funds will be allotted for development – the building of new dormitories and reconstruction of teaching facilities, for example.
The MSU budget for 2007 is 5,580,000,000 rubles, and over 3 billion rubles for SPSU. Budgets for other Russian institutions of higher education range from 500 million rubles in the regions to 1.5 billion rubles in the capital, for a total of 214,049,000,000 rubles nationwide.
The federal universities will have the right to form subsidiary organizations and enterprises for innovative projects. Today, institutions of higher education are limited by the Budget Code. They cannot form subsidiaries. The federal universities will also receive property and profit tax reductions or exemptions.
Verbitskaya told Kommersant that the federal universities should have the right to issue their graduates their special diplomas. “Russian institutions of higher education offer different quality of knowledge, and that means their diplomas should be different,” opined MSU rector Viktor Sadovnichy. In addition, the rectors are proposing to the government that the universities form their own attestation committee to allow them to grant their own degrees. Now higher attestation committees are subordinate to the Ministry of Education and Science. “Why does someone else have to confirm the decisions of our scientists?” asked Verbitskaya.
Kommersant has learned that those proposals are being discussed in the government and have not caused much objection. The government has, however, suggested that, in exchange for their financial, economic and academic freedom, the means of selecting the heads of the federal universities be changed. The government is proposing that the cabinet of ministers appoint them.
The rectors have no common response to that proposal. Verbitskaya does not find the appointment of the heads of the federal universities expedient. Sadovncihy has noted repeatedly, however, that the head of MSU “was confirmed by the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Soviet times.”
It is clear that receiving these benefits is more important for SPSU. MSU already has “special” status – it is not subject to any agency and has its own entry in the state budget.
The government is clearly establishing a new system of financing by assigning institutions of higher education different statuses. MSU and SPSU make up the top league. In time, the Siberian (Krasnoyarsk), Southern (Rostov-on-Don) and Far Eastern national universities, which are being founded as part of the Education national project, may join their ranks. The first league will consist of the 55 institutions that have received presidential grants in the last two years in competitions for innovative projects.
The remaining institutions in the country can be considered only the second league. The expansion of the budgets of the leading institutions will come at the expense of these outsiders.
University leaders have varied reactions to these scheme. “The idea itself of dividing groups of universities that have preserved their research potential, quality of teaching and reputation deserves support,” said rector of the Higher School of Economics Yaroslav Kuzminov. “The state is obliged to concentrate its resources on those that are worthy of the title of the best.” Kuzminov also noted that MSU and SPSU “although they are in the first cohort of Russian institutions of higher education, are not leaders in everything. They did not take first place in competitions for innovations, for example.”
Efim Pivovar, rector of the Russian State Humanities University, on the other hand, is convinced that MSU and SPSU are worthy of special status, since they are “more authoritative and more expensive than other institutions of higher education in the country.” Pivovar does not like the idea of ranking the rest of the country's institutions, however. “I don't think that ranking, especially financially, should be based on an innovation competition with disputable results. If the government decides to distribute the state budget for institutions of higher education, it should do so carefully and rationally.”
Yulia Taratuta
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 02, 2007
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