Formalism or new degree of freedom: the impact of globalization on Russian education

Abstract

The changes taking place in world education, within the framework of global trends, dictate new standards for the development of Russian higher education. On the one hand, universities are increasingly focused on the formation of specialists with «higher-order thinking skills», on the other hand, a constant race for quantitative indicators, formalizes the educational process, eliminating elements of creativity and freedom. The purpose of this article is to examine the influence of global trends on domestic education and science through the prism of the history of Russian higher education. The study was conducted on the basis of a system- historical approach, using descriptive and comparative methods. From the very first years of its existence, the Russian high school combined elements of Prussian and French universities. The level of its autonomy and development was directly dependent on domestic policy. The American education system, which has become an example for many world universities today, relying on the English model of the college, focused on democracy, electivity, widespread availability, pragmatism and competition. The combination of these qualities allowed US universities by the end of the twentieth century. become a guideline for the idea of unifying the principles of learning and evaluating the effectiveness of universities in the world. Russian higher education also joined the process of modifying higher education according to the American model. However, the absence of economic preconditions and the features of the organization of the Russian educational process, that were formed over several centuries, allowed only formally conform to new standards. In the conditions of priority of quantitative indicators, over qualitative ones, the formation of specialists with «thinking of a higher order» becomes difficult to achieve.