A special council for increase in higher education institutions competitiveness will be organized in Russia. This news was spread by RIA News.
The respective enactment was signed by the Head of the Government of the Russian Federation, Mr. Dmitriy Medvedev, on the 18th of March. Making proposals on the council membership was entrusted to the Minister of Education and Science.
The same enactment approved the amount of state support offered to Russian institutions of higher education for the year of 2013, which makes 9 milliard roubles. Its purpose is “increase in competitiveness among leading global research-and-training centres”.
In December, 2012 it was reported that the Ministry of Education and Science was planning to assign 55 milliard roubles for projects of higher education institutions by the end of 2015. These projects must help Russian educational establishments to get into the list of the best hundred universities of the world. In so doing 9 milliard roubles must be allocated for the year of 2013, 21 milliard roubles – for 2014 and 24 milliard roubles – for 2015.
According to the rating “Times Higher Education World University Rankings” made up by the British magazine Times Higher Education together with Thomson Reuters agency in October, 2012, Russian higher education institutions were outside the first two hundred universities. As a whole, only two universities – MGU (Moscow State University) named after Lomonosov and NIYaU MIFI (National Nuclear Research University “Moscow Institute of Physics and Engineering”) – ranked in the rating of the best four hundred universities.
In November, 2012 the analytical company Economist Intelligence Unit placed the Russian educational system to the 20 position in its rating. The rating was based on international tests in literacy, knowledge of mathematics and fundamental scientific knowledge. Furthermore, such indices as percentage of pupils who have finished schools and percentage of higher education institution graduates were also taken into consideration.