New Issue of HERB Now Available Online

Higher Education in Russia and Beyond (HERB) team presents the 8th issue of a journal destined to bring current Russian, Central Asian and Eastern European educational trends to the attention of the international research community. This issue covers the transformation of higher education in former Soviet republics.

This issue’s particular focus is the change in the institutional landscape of post-Soviet countries with regard to national trends in higher education expansion. The issue comes alongside the final stage of the international project Higher Education System Dynamics and Institutional Diversity in Post-Soviet Countries, coordinated by the HSE Institute of Education. The papers of this issue include empirical findings of the project related to the following countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Estonia and Latvia.

The countries of the former Soviet Union share common past. However, they took very different paths since year 1991 and followed diverse models of higher education expansion. Unequal starting conditions and unique socio-economic, cultural and political contexts have all shaped the development of higher education in various ways: from rapid massification to de-massification. The changes in participation rates are certainly reflected in the number and types of higher education institutions. The papers of this issue review these changes in the higher education landscape, including transformation of traditional Soviet institutions and establishment of the new ones (e.g., private, newly formed legal entities, international or foreign universities, etc.). Other structural reforms have also contributed to the development of the landscape: for instance, new accreditation systems and selection of leading universities. This issue aims to reflect on the results of the changes and shed light on various national trajectories of higher education development in post-Soviet countries. The authors describe the specifics of the effects of national reforms and state policies on higher education. They also consider the environment of higher education systemic fluctuations: e.g., labor market transformations, demographic trends, economic and political agenda.

HERB 2(8) Summer 2016 – Higher Education Landscape in Post-Soviet Countries: 25 Years of Changes

Previous HERB issues are available in the archive.

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