Russia: The Unified State Exam in Russia: Problems and Perspectives
Russian universities have undergone two significant changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union: the dramatic cuts in state financial support that accompanied the adoption of a market economy and integration into the European higher education system th
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56. RUSSIA: THE UNIFIED STATE EXAM IN RUSSIA: PROBLEMS AND PERSPECTIVES International Higher Education, Summer 2014, Number 76
Russian universities have undergone two significant changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union: the dramatic cuts in state financial support that accompanied the adoption of a market economy and integration into the European higher education system through the Bologna process. Both reforms remain incomplete. Universities are still dependent on the state. There are more universities than necessary, and the level of education they offer is sometimes questionable. Corruption in many forms and in large volumes in the university admissions process and during university studies is the other challenge, with which many universities still have to deal. CORRUPTION IN UNIVERSITY ADMISSIONS
The university admissions process has been one of the most problematic issues in Russian higher education in terms of corruption. Until 2009, each university in Russia held its own entrance examination. The level of corruption in this area was the highest of all kinds of corruption in education. By 2004, it had reached 10.7 billion rubles (US$455 million) per year. In order to solve this problem, university admission is now awarded on the basis of the EGE (Edinyi Gosudarstvennyi Eksamen—Unified State Exam) tests that serve as both a school final examination and for university entrance. The EGE gives potential students the opportunity to apply to several universities simultaneously, which had not been possible before. With the EGE replacing the previous entrance examinations, there is no longer a need to visit a university during the application process and spend a few weeks on campus—expenditures that not all families could afford. Now, however, corruption has moved largely from the universities to other areas—including the processes responsible for conducting the EGE itself. PUBLIC OPINION AND EMPIRICAL RESULTS
The sociological surveys conducted regularly by the Levada Center, one of the bestknown Russian opinion research institutes, show that a majority of respondents believe that, with the introduction of the EGE, the number of bribes—blat (the use
G. Mihut et al. (Eds.), Understanding Global Higher Education, 261–263. © 2017 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
E. DENISOVA-SCHMIDT & E. LEONTYEVA
of informal networks to obtain goods and services)—and other violations in the university admissions process have remained the same (34%) or even increased (30%). Only a small group of survey participants (13%) believes that the EGE has helped to decrease those violations. Our own research, conducted in 2013 at selected universities in the Russian Far East, shows similar results: 31 percent of the survey respondents observed some violations during the EGE; 14 percent of them observed these violations personally, while 17 percent referenced their relatives or friends. These violations include disseminating exam questions before the examination, using mobile phones (for Internet searches or SMS), receiving hel
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