Modern approaches to the “regionalization” of federal policy in Russian higher education

• In Event: Poster Session: Translating policy into practice: The challenges and possibilities of education reform in diverse contexts

Abstract

Issues of development of regional systems of higher education are becoming increasingly popular among researchers in recent decades (Brown, 1991, McDaniel, 1996, Teichler, 2006). This research topic is particularly applicable to the countries with “federal type” systems of higher education characterized by the high heterogeneity of their regions.
Relatively the post-Soviet higher education systems, especially in Russia, such research have not been conducted. However, the current development of higher education in Russia requires such analysis. Significant heterogeneity of Russian regional higher education systems requires thoughtful federal policy taking into account unique features of the regional socio-economic situations. The research presented in the paper had its key goal in the elaboration of the basis for the “regionalization” of public policy in Russian higher education. In the context of the study the “regionalization” means that public policy should consider different development scenarios of heterogeneous regional higher education systems corresponding to regional socio-economic development priorities.
With the regard to the international approaches (Teichler, 2004; Neave, 1989, Kyvik, 2004) it is necessary for the classification of regional education systems to take into account the main features of internal structure of the system. The basic instrument for identifying such characteristics is the elaboration of typology of higher education institutions consequently. Following to concept elaborated by I. Froumin, Y. Kouzminov, and D. Semyonov (2014) the four main types of higher education institutions were developed: research universities, infrastructural higher education institutions (HEIs), specialized HEIs, mass HEIs.
Stemming from the facts above, the principles for classifying regional education systems shall be based on determining various types of higher education institutions and their regional market positions. The data analysis allows evaluating the distribution of the share of various higher education segments in the region.
Another factor which has been taken into account while classifying systems of higher education was the degree of competitiveness in the regional higher education market. The notion that market forces are more influential than direct control in education development has been gaining more and more popularity lately (Teixeira, Rocha, Biscaia, Cardoso, 2014). This phenomenon is worth taking into account, as education markets with a higher level of competition are distinguished by greater efficiency of universities, including public ones (Pollitt, C. and Bouckaert, G., 2011). The level of competitiveness was determined with the use of the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index, based on the share of students at universities and regional university branches. Also another basic parameter was considering in the model. It is the level of attractiveness of regional higher education system assessing by level of interregional higher education migration.
According to the principles outlined above, the regional higher education systems were grouped by type with the use of the cluster analysis method.
Five types of regional higher education systems have been determined:
1. Regions with global HEIs;
2. Regions with a balanced regional higher education system of the infrastructural type;
3. Regions with a balanced regional higher education system of the specialized type;
4. Regions with dominant infrastructural HEIs;
5. Regional higher education system with the lowest level of development (underdeveloped).

The next step of research is weighing the typology of regional higher education systems against classification of regional economic conditions. Classification of regional economic conditions includes seven types of regions by their investment potential, from “driver” regions to “problematic” regions. The identification of this connection provides basis for defining several possible development areas for various regional higher education system types, based on the goal to ensure their compliance to the region's economic conditions. Based on the current state of the regional higher education systems, as well as proposed typology, the scenarios of their development were developed. This allows to identify different approaches and mechanism to the public management of the regional higher education systems: from the steering model (Marginson, 2011) which includes elements of the new public management (Bleiklie, 1998) and is based on the precondition that the state is only regulator on the higher education market, to direct interference by the state (Clark, 1983; Brown, 1992) in order to improve the quality of education in the region with underdeveloped higher education system.

This research can be basis for comparative research of countries characterized by the high heterogeneity of their regions (especially countries with “federal type” system of higher education). Such comparable research may be aimed to explore and identify different types of regional higher education systems in terms of their correlation with regional socio-economic conditions.

Author

• Oleg Leshukov, Institute of Education, Higher School of Economics, 2014