Government plans to monitor graduate employment

Russia’s government plans to increase its control over higher education quality by regularly monitoring graduate employment. The first monitoring exercise will be completed in November, with the results to be taken into account in compiling national university rankings in 2014.

According to the Ministry of Education, universities that have the worst records regarding graduate employment will be closed and their licences will be revoked.

The government plans to draw on Western experience of graduate employment monitoring, using the Financial Times Global MBA Ranking as a guide in designing its own system.

According to the ministry’s official representative, demand for graduates in the labour market and their employment could be a primary indicator of higher education quality in future.

Russia’s Izvestia business paper reported that a unified register of university graduates would be established, to enable better monitoring of graduate employment and to track fake diplomas.

The register is likely to measure the percentage of graduates employed within three months of graduating, average annual salaries, career progress and salary growth. In the longer term it will also contain data on the percentage of graduates who were hired with the help of universities, or found work on their own.

This year, the new monitoring system will cover only state universities and high schools. From 2014 it will encompass all universities and colleges, including private institutions.

Irina Abankina, director of the Institute of Education Development at the Higher School of Economics and a member of a state working group designing criteria for university evaluation, explained that adding new criteria would better reflect the current situation in universities.

The government’s main goal was to make the activities of universities in Russia more transparent, and to ensure the provision of high quality education comparable to Western standards.

However, some experts have criticised the initiative, considering it too formalistic. And a representative of the Russian Union of Students described graduate employment as a superficial criterion. He also said there was a need to take the views of students into account.

The government earlier announced that monitoring of university efficiency would begin on 15 August. Deputy Minister of Education Alexander Klimov said universities would be divided into six groups, according to their specialisms.

Last year, more than 30 universities and 262 branch campuses were found to be ineffective and in need of reorganisation, according to the results of government monitoring.