Bachelor or Baccalaureate

[Elena Gapova]

http://www.ogoniok.com/archive/2005/4880-4881/01-10-15/
ОГОНЕК: Зачем нашему высшему образованию переходить на двухуровневую модель -- бакалавриат и магистратуру?
-- Надо привести в соответствие спрос на высшее образование и потребность рынка в нем. В России -- «навес высшего образования». 88% семей считают его необходимым или желательным для своих детей, 67% -- готовы платить за него значительные, по их меркам, деньги. Прием в вузы вырос за последние 10 лет больше чем в два раза. К 2010 году количество выпускников высшей школы достигнет 1,5 миллиона человек в год. В то же время экономика востребует не больше чем 500 -- 700 тысяч специалистов с высшим образованием.

Professor Dunn is right: a two-tier system is being discussed (and realised)in Russia, at European Humanities University in Belarus (which is now "university in exile" in Vilnius) and elsewhere. It is now a reality in the Baltic countries. The idea is, as prof. Dunn pointed out, to harmonize the system with what exists in other parts of the world, first, and to produce not "specialists" (as was the case with the Soviet system), but "generally educated people" who can then work in varoius occupations, adapting to what the market demands.

In January 2005 "Ogoniok" published a special issue on the subject (http://www.ogoniok.com/archive/2005/4880-4881/ ), discussing pro and contra of the new system. The issue was titled "Типа Гарвард", which is a play on how the "new Russians" speak ("он ко мне типа подходит и говорит...", "он типа где-то там учился..."). "Ogoniok" imitating this speech needs an explanation: the greatest of the perestroika magazines (when its circulation skyrocketed), it was oriented at "intelligentnye lyudi", but in the last years the circulation has been falling (with so many new publications on the market, and the intelligentnye lyudi not ending up the most prosperous). In the fall 2004 a new editor-in-chief (Vlad Vdovin)was invited, and he promised to make the magazine "profitable" (in fact, he said that this would be "the best magazine") by targeting a special segment of the readership: successful urbanites in their early 30s (i.e. at "neintelligenthye lyudi", who hardly go to Moskovskaya konservatoriya, but may spend their vacations in Spain or Egypt). The topics, the language and the way of presenting the world changed  towards "degentrification"... and the circulation fell even more... Now the previous editor (Victor Loshak) has been summoned back... and the future is unclear. 

Elena Gapova 

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