Destruction, construction, reconstitution? A comparative typology of new higher education institutions in the former Soviet space

• In Event: Politics and activism in higher education in Eurasia

Proposal

“There’s no continuity in Kazakhstan [in the higher education system from the Soviet era]. Maybe there is in other places. But you understand, destroying something can be done quickly. Creating something requires time and intense effort.”
This quote, from an experienced faculty member, expresses one perspective on a spectrum of informed opinion about the trajectory of higher education since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The respondent went on to describe what they have seen from firsthand experience as critical discontinuities in higher education in their native Kazakhstan, but also counselled caution about the implications of attempting to build a new system from the ground up.
Across the former Soviet space, governments have grappled with fundamental questions around how to build or re-form sovereign nations, how to deal with the massive legacies of the preceding Soviet era, and how to navigate intense globalization processes that were further stimulated with the collapse of the communist bloc. Structural reforms have extended to all aspects of society, particularly to social institutions such as higher education that had historically been very closely linked to the state.
One response to change has been the massive expansion of higher education systems. An important cause and consequence of this growth was the creation of new higher education institutions (HEIs) in the 1990s. Many of these new HEIs were privately operated, their existence made possible by government policies that extended late Soviet programs of privatization to permit private ownership and allow new profit-making ownership types. Nevertheless, it is notable that despite significant economic constraints on the states, especially in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the expansion of higher education during the 1990s also led to the creation of new state universities.
The creation of quite different forms of new HEI leads to the research questions this paper explores, which are, 1) To what extent do these newly formed HEIs represent a break from the Soviet past? and 2) How do patterns in the emergence of new HEIs compare across the former Soviet space, using the cases of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan?
Drawing from the author’s PhD research, the paper proposes a typology of four distinct patterns in the new HEIs that emerged in the first half of the 1990s classified as ‘external’, ‘hybrid’, ‘bi-national’ and ‘Soviet’. Using case studies, the paper distinguishes the types in terms of their organization, the founding actors and their funding model. From this typology comes a comparative analysis of the prevalence of each type in the three countries, and a discussion of the cross-national differences.
Through this comparative investigation, the paper elaborates on the dynamics of structural reforms and shows how policy choices made by governments in higher education have shaped the vision of a preferred future for each state. This has ramifications for how each state has continued to develop its higher education system as the 21st century progresses and as the distance from the path-altering events of 1991 increases.

Note: A version of this paper was accepted for an earlier CIES conference but was not presented due to the pandemic.

Author

• Emma Harden-Wolfson, McGill University