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The Transformations of Higher Education in 15 Post-Soviet Countries: The State, the Market and Institutional Diversification

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Abstract

Soviet higher education had a distinctive institutional landscape. It combined two institutional types in a uniform model that embedded higher education in the national economy. This paper focuses on the post-Soviet system-level changes in the institutional landscape in all 15 countries of the former USSR. It shows that over last three decades the Soviet two-type institutional model evolved into a three-type model, with the specialized university as a new institutional type. Highlighting the instruments of horizontal and vertical differentiation for each country, the paper explains how structural reforms and market forces led to the rise of the university/multiversity form of institution, and the strengthening of vertical stratification at system level. The comparative analysis shows that there have been different patterns of transformation in the 15 countries, shaped by unique combinations of structural reforms and marketization policies, with certain countries having made more distinctive steps away from the Soviet institutional model. There are now 15 formally different systems of higher education which poses further questions for comparative analysis.

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Fig. 1

Source: Authors. Instruments of vertical differentiation are typed vertically. Sec.voc. means secondary vocational

Fig. 2

Source: Authors using national data. Coloured blocks show the transformations which have taken place. *Coloured blocks mean full transition to the new system; no colour means partial transition, complementing the Soviet system (Specialist’s degree) with the new one. In Uzbekistan foreign branches have been non-state, and private sector has been re-opening

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Acknowledgements

Support from the Basic Research Program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics is gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. Institute of Education, HSE University, Myasnitskaya 20, Moscow, 101000, Russia

    Anna Smolentseva

  2. Laboratory for Universities Development, Institute of Education, HSE University, Myasnitskaya 20, Moscow, 101000, Russia

    Daria Platonova

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Correspondence to Anna Smolentseva.

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Smolentseva, A., Platonova, D. The Transformations of Higher Education in 15 Post-Soviet Countries: The State, the Market and Institutional Diversification. High Educ Policy 36, 370–393 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-021-00259-5

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