Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has found a way to optimize state services provided by the Ministry of Education and Science. He proposed at the government meeting yesterday that higher education institutions should be issued free and permanent licenses while a great number of firms which are now issuing them should be abolished. Mr Putin is sure that this will help combat corruption in the sphere of education and make the whole system more logical and transparent.
At present, all Russian higher education institutions undergo a licensing procedure every five years. In other words, they must undergo a serious procedure to confirm their status and the quality of their students' knowledge. All this is a nerve-racking business for both professors and students and a huge waste of money. Last year alone, institutes of higher learning spent nearly 1.9 billion roubles to this end. A university's accreditation may cost up to 1.5 million roubles, and inn the end, the students have to pay for it.
Meanwhile, this type of licensing does not fall within the purview of licensing law, but is rather regulated by the laws on higher education. The scheme is as follows: a higher education institution must submit a certificate of ownership or long-term lease of the educational building it uses and confirm its compliance with sanitary and fire protection standards as well as the availability of the necessary staff of professors and teachers. Then it signs an agreement with the Federal Agency of Supervision in Education and Science (Rosobrnadzor), which sends a commission there that will issue an expert report for pay. With the institution's administration vying for a positive report and ready to pay for it, many officials do not hesitate to profit from their services.
Mr Putin chose a quite radical method to put an end to corruption in this sphere.
"I think educational institutions must be exempt from payments for both licenses and accreditation and instead pay a transparent state fee fixed by the government," he said yesterday. "To my mind, such a license must be permanent," he added.
The Prime Minister said that the prosecution authorities had repeatedly pointed out that supervising functions cannot be combined with paid services; moreover, these functions cannot be transferred to subordinate organizations. These are obvious conditions for corruption, and they must be abolished.
However, while freeing higher education establishments from licensing payments, the government is not going to shed control over their activities. According to Mr Putin, sanctions for violating rules of licensing must automatically become tougher.
"Regrettably, in our country liberalism is often viewed as all-permissiveness and as an instrument to attain covetous aims. We have not yet managed to free our education system from all sorts of pseudo-educational establishments that are just printing certificates for profit while providing very poor education. The simplification of administrative procedures does not at all mean that we will be demanding less of educational institutions and the quality of education," the Prime Minister said.
By Anastasia Savinykh
