Barber M., Mourshed M. Shaping the future: How good education systems can become great in the decade ahead.
Report on the International education roundtable, Singapore, 7 July 2009. (пер. с англ. Е. Фруминой)

Fuhrmann M. Wilhelm von Humboldt und die Berliner Universität // Bachmaier H., Fischer E.P. (Hg.). Der Streit der Fakultäten oder die Idee der Universität. Konstanz: Universitätsverlag Konstanz, 1997. S. 29–45. (Translated from German by E.Borisov)

The problem of value neutrality of science is considered on the basis of works by Leo Tolstoy and Max Weber. In the first part of the article, the statements on the value neutrality of scientific knowledge and university teaching by Weber and Tolstoy are made explicit and analyzed in a comparative perspective. In the second part, the central problem of Tolstoy and Weber, that is, a rational choice of the value paradigm, is studied systematically. Differences in their assumptions and conclusions are shown. In the third part, a historical commentary to the context of Tolstoy’s and Weber’s works is given. The works are treated as episodes in a wider modern history of the value neutralization of the scientific knowledge and university teaching. The specifics of this process are tightly connected with the fundamental principles of the modern research university (the Humboldtian model of university).

This is a theoretical sociological survey. The academic autonomy is considered as a metaphor symbolically defining the borders of the university space. The historical survey deals with the transformations of the academic autonomy in the USSR and Russia. Described are current institutional and global threats to the academic autonomy.

The article analyzes the practices of two Chinese higher education institutions: Xinjian College (private) and Jiaying University (state-run) as concerns the hiring, working conditions, and motivation, of foreign teachers, and specifics of teaching English as a foreign language. The experience of Chinese colleges (represented from the viewpoint of an involved observer) is of interest for Russian colleges, because currently the latter tend to hire foreign teachers more frequently.

The article suggests ways to use definitions from official education standards as a basis for evaluation of the education results. Proposed are more precise definitions for the notions used in the third generation education standards to describe the skill results of education. Based on this, the authors propose principled models of Bachelor graduates and lays out principled approaches to higher education results evaluation in the framework of the proposed models in the context of summarized evaluation.

The article considers prerequisites and methodological presumptions inherent in the notion of quality culture, and argues for the necessity to more systematically include quality teaching maintenance in this notion. Presented are the goals, methods, and basic results of the first project «Supporting Quality Teaching in Higher Education» carried out by the «Institutional Governance in Higher Education» OECR program. On the basis of the colleges participating in the program, the article considers priority directions in the ensuring of the quality teaching, as well as the background and context of the development of various moves to ensure the quality teaching, and describes its participants and mechanisms. The outcomes of the participation of HSE in the first stage of the project are laid out.

We consider a variety of programs for training computer and information technology experts, and analyze the structure of knowledge of IT experts of various types. With the help of cluster analysis, we have established three clusters of programs, which we chose to call «mathematician/programmer», «engineer/programmer», and «system administrator». We determine didactic units related to each module of the training and obtain expert evaluation of the coverage of the modules by the didactic units. We propose a didactic structure for the training of IT experts. It includes a description of the required overall knowledge and of the requirements on the professional training level.

The article presents a statistical characterization of the technical infrastructure of general and professional education institutions (availability of modern computers, internet access and parameters of the latter), as well as estimates of the use of information and communication technologies by teachers in Russia and federal subjects of Russia in the academic years 2006/2007–2009/2010. Some Russian indicators are compared to those of European Union countries. As the information source, the authors used data of federal observations of the Russian Federal Service for Government Statistics (Rosstat) on the education statistics, methodological and analytical findings of the Institute of Statistical Studies and Economics of HSE, as well as materials of the Monitoring of the Education Economy, conducted by HSE on behalf of the Education and Science Ministry of Russia.

Using the data of a sociological survey conducted in the Republic of Saha (Yakutia), the author analyzes the influence of education as a social institution on the process of the socio-cultural adaptation of an individual. Stressed is the important role of the education system in the situation when the behavior models of the parent generation cannot satisfy the adaptive needs of an individual.

The final seminar of the series Recent Studies and Developments in Education in the academic year 2009/2010 was traditionally dedicated to the memory of A. A. Pinsky. The discussed topics were chosen by interviewing experts as the most important changes in the education system that occurred in 2009/2010.

1. Adopting the second generation standards for the primary school.

2. Admission to all higher education institutions on the basis of the Unified State Examination (USE) results.

3. Legislation of the law on the new legal status of educational institutions.

Considered are reasons of the wide spread of the plagiarism in students, as well as advantages and disadvantages of the principal means of fighting itm and the specifics of the current situation in the Russian higher education. The author believes that it is necessary to take urgent and drastic measures, including the standardizing of sanctions against plagiarists, encouragement of teachers who fight plagiarism, and creation of nationwide online service controlling student qualification papers.

Discussed are specific traits of the evaluation of schools and students’ education achievements, as well as the specifics of the recruitment of teachers in Finland. Those are considered as factors improving the education quality.

Pedagogical observations and an analysis of data on the recent academic achievements show that by the middle of the basic school course (in the seventh and in particular in the eighth year) the academic achievement drastically decreases. It is shown that the learning results are directly connected with the development of information skills in students. The lack of ability to extract necessary information from various types of sources and the lack of academic independence decrease the preparedness of a student to self educate. The same tendencies show in the PIRLS and PISA results nationwide. There are discussed possible measures to improve information skills in students, as a part of implementation of the «Lifelong learning» school education project. The article proposes ways of work with texts that would allow to improve the learning results of 12–14 year old students.

Review of the textbook: O. N. Zhuravleva, T. I. Pashkova, D. V. Kuzin. Russian History: 10th Year. Textbook for High Schools. Ed. by R.Sh. Ganelina, Corresponding Member of RAS. Moscow: Ventana-Graf, 2008.

Review of the textbook: L. N. Bogolyubov, A.Yu. Lazebnikova. Man and Society. Social sciences. Textbook for 10th–11th Year High School Students. In 2 parts. Moscow, Prosveshchenie, 2006.