Project overview

With the breakdown of the USSR, the consistent Soviet model of higher education in fifteen republics of the USSR has divided into fifteen independent journeys. Despite the differences and disparities in national economies, social processes, demographics, number of HEIs and participation rates at the point of departure (Smolentseva 2012), these higher education systems shared a common model of the organization and structure of higher education. In the Post-Soviet period, the national systems adopted a similar package of neoliberal reforms (Silova and Steiner-Khamsi 2008, Smolentseva 2012), aimed at the “normalization” of the systems: establishment of a non-state sector, user fees in public sector, national standardized tests for admission exams to higher education, per capita funding, loans for education. The challenges and issues were also similar: collapse of the centrally planned system, decline of the funding, brain drain, etc. Those transformations dramatically affected all higher educational institutions, which had to adapt to the rapidly changing environments, which eventually resulted in the changes in the structure of the national higher education systems. Institutions, traditionally known as classical/comprehensive universities, polytechnics, specialized institutions of higher learning, which had addressed prescribed social functions and economic areas in the Soviet time, became different as a result of expanding or closing down certain fields of study, research activity, and participation in governmental excellence programs or mergers.

The study of the institutional differentiation in Post-Soviet countries provides a unique opportunity to trace the changes across the national models which used to bear similar characteristics and also experienced similar reforms. The studies in other regions, though, suggest that despite all the similarities across the countries, national/regional factors seem to be powerful preventing national models from the convergence (Torres and Schugurensky 2002, Gornitzka et al 2007, Silova 2010). Thus, what happened to the former Soviet systems: do they converge or diverge, what are similarities and differences in their present structures and institutional landscapes, which factors have driven these developments?

The research employs an institutional research perspective, in which institutional diversity is treated as a variety of higher education institutions within a higher education system (Huisman 2015). The process of emergence of new higher education institutions is an institutional differentiation, which can be horizontal (institutions with new functional types) and vertical (hierarchical by status, quality, prestige) (Huisman 2015).

The comparative study focuses on the following research questions:

- what is the Soviet model of institutional diversity and how did it differ across countries;

- what is the current institutional landscape in the national systems;

- which Soviet legacies are persistent in a comparative perspective;

- what are the main drivers of the transformations in the areas of higher education policy and external/environmental factors (economy, demographics, languages etc.) across countries; what stimulates or impedes institutional differentiation;

- in particular, what is the role of policy, markets, civil society in the transformation of institutional landscape; what is the balance between global and national forces; and whether we can talk about convergence of the systems.

Higher Education Systems in Post-Soviet Countries: Overview

References

Gornitzka, A., Maassen, P., Olsen, J., and B.Stensaker. 2007. “Europe of Knowledge”: Search for a New Pact”. In University Dynamics and European Integration, edited by Peter Maassen and Johan P. Olsen, 181–214. Springer.

Heyneman, S. P. (2000). Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 22(2), 173–191. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1164394

Huisman, J. (2015). Framework for the international research project „Higher education systems dynamics and institutional diversity in post-Soviet countries”.

Smolentseva, A. 2012. “Access to Higher Education in the Post-Soviet States: Between Soviet Legacy and Global Challenges”. Paper commissioned and presented at Salzburg Global Seminar, Session 495 “Optimizing talent: Closing educational and social mobility gaps worldwide”. October 2-7, 2012.

Silova, Iveta and Steiner-Khamsi, Gita. 2008. Unwrapping the Post-Socialist Reform Package. In: Silova, I. and Steiner-Khamsi, G. (Eds.). How NGOs React: Globalization and Education Reform in the Caucasus, Central Asia and Mongolia. Kumarian Press.

Silova, I. 2010. “Rediscovering Post-Socialism in Comparative Education”. In Post-Socialism is not Dead: (Re)Reading the Global in Comparative Education. International Perspectives on Education and Society, edited by I.Silova, volume 14, 1–24.

Torres, C. and D. Schugurensky. 2002. “The Political Economy of Higher Education in the Era of Neoliberal Globalization: Latin America in Comparative Perspective”. Higher Education 43 (4), 429-455.

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Higher Education System Dynamics and Institutional Diversity in Post-Soviet Countries

Project overview