Kitabı oku: «“Optimizing” Higher Education in Russia», sayfa 3

41 See, for example, M. Gladwell, “The Order of Things: What College Rankings Really Tell Us,” The New Yorker, Feb. 14 and 21, 2011.

42 A. Chernykh, “Pochemu vedushchie vuzy perevodyat na vneshnee upravlenie,” Kommersant, July 1, 2014, p. 5.

43 Zh. Toschchenko, “K chemu vedet neskonchaemaya optimizatisya obrazovaniya,” Nepavisimaya gazeta, Jan. 1, 2020. http://www.ng.ru/stsenarii/2020-01-27/9_7778_education.html? (consulted Jan 14, 2020)

3. The Condition of University Teachers Following the “Optimizing” Reforms of 2012-18
a. Employment
1. Massive Job Cuts

The “road map” called for a 44% reduction of full-time teaching positions by 2018. As noted, this drastic job cut was ostensibly based on a projected 30-percent decline in the 17-25 age cohort, reported in the document, as well on the goal of raising the student/teacher ratio from the current 9.4 to 12, the OECD average.

In May 2018, V. Tilles, physics teacher at Yugorskii State University and a co-chairperson of Unisol, citing government statistics, informed a special session of the President’s Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights that 125,000, almost 40% full-time university teaching positions or their equivalent, had been cut since publication of the May decrees. And job reductions were continuing.1

The “roadmap” did not specify how teaching positions were to be eliminated, and university administrations were apparently left to improvise. One widespread early method was to reduce full-time positions to three-quarters, half, even a quarter, while salaries and workloads remained unchanged, although not for long.

This method offered administrations several advantages, since various quantitative parameters for the ministry’s evaluation of universities are calculated with the number of equivalent full-time teachers as the denominator. This was therefore an easy way to appear to meet the ministry’s performance indicators. Among other things, it allowed rectors to show that teachers’ salaries were indeed rising, as promised by the Decrees. M. Feigelman, physics teachers at MFTI, reported that in 2015 many teachers suddenly saw themselves shifted to 0.7 of a position. “At the same time, they promised to leave their basic salary as it was, but the teaching hours were not reduced. The teachers could not understand this, and so it was explained to them that that is how the university is trying to carry out the presidential decree to increase salaries. On paper, the full-time salary will rise, but since the colleague has been shifted to 0.7 position, the expense remains the same.”2 This method also allowed rectors to demonstrate a reduction in the number of full-time teaching positions without creating a shortage of teachers, while at the same time showing an increased teacher-student ratio.

Another important advantage of the method is that it avoided, or at least reduced, resistance on the part of teachers, who could optimistically view the change as somehow merely formal. The Labour Code requires employees’ consent to such changes in their terms of their employment. But the correlation of forces in universities, and in the broader state, is such that teachers’ consent is usually forthcoming. Nevertheless, the insulting nature of the reduction moved some teachers, in particular those at or past retirement age, to leave the university “of their own accord.”

A related method was to change teachers’ the job title, for example, from teacher to methodologist, a fate that befell, among others, the entire faculty of modern languages of MFTI in 2017, despite Unisol’s protest.3 In May 2015, the rector of Ural Federal University let it be known that 700 teaching positions would be cut. But he ensured local president of Unisol, Dm. Trynov, that “We plan to cut teaching positions, not people.” A protest organized by the union and that attracted the attention Vl. Burmatov, vice chairperson of the State Duma’s committee on education, put a temporary halt to the rector’s plan. But, as another union activist, A. Ladygin, recalled, after a visit to the university from Prime Minister Medvedev, who indicated clearly his approval of the rector’s course, Burmatov changed his tune, and “the process went ahead at full speed. Officially, no one was fired. […] A directive was simply issued to all department chairpersons—and they are all on contracts, with the rector regulating the length of their leashes—to talk privately with teachers, especially with the elderly ones who have reached pension age. The union was active among the teachers, explaining that it was a violation of the Labour Code, that the administration could not fire them. All the same, the bulk of teachers behaved rather passively in the situation. And as a result, (in my department) it comes to a planned cut of 17,5 positions, though initially 7,5 positions. This in reality is the departure of very real people at the end of their contracts. They are planning the merger of a series of institutes and faculties, also in the interests of optimization. In general, there is no end in sight. It is a policy of cutting off the dog’s tail piece by piece.”4

Teachers who refused to accept the change risked being marked as trouble-makers and being dismissed when their contract came up for renewal. And that, in fact, became a widespread method for cutting jobs: at the end of a teacher’s current five-year contract, his or her position would be simply eliminated by the fact that a new competition was announced. Teachers who sought recourse through the courts were told that it is the employer’s right to determine the list of job titles in their institution.5 Universities were able to make these job cuts without paying the compensation (up to three months’ salary) or assuming the other responsibilities that are required by the Labour Code for cases of “mass dismissal”.

All this took place with the silent approval of Rosprofobr, the main trade union of employees of the educational sector. This holdover from Soviet times claims five million members, including higher managerial personnel of universities and schools.

2. Permanent Probation

Over the course of this period, one-year employment contracts became a widespread, if not quite universal, norm6. Still other teachers were placed on civil-law (grazhdansko-pravovye) contracts for a limited, concrete task and even smaller salaries. As a result, highly competent teachers, some with decades of experience at the same institution, found themselves on a “short leash,” in effect, on permanent probation. “We now find ourselves ‘suspended,’ as never before under the Communist regime or under Yeltsin,” observed R. Kostiuk, political scientist at St. Petersburg State University.

Article 332 of the Labour Code states that the contracts of university teachers may be of limited or unlimited duration. On the other hand, article 70 expressly forbids probationary periods for employees hired through competitions. But repeated annual contracts are, of course, nothing but permanent probation. The collective agreement of 2015-17, “negotiated” by Rosobrofobr on behalf of the teachers, recommended that unlimited contracts be the norm and that any short-term contracts be concluded for not less than three years. But it made no attempt to enforce that. That same agreement also stipulated that if the parties could not agree to the length of the contract, it would be of unlimited duration.7 “But in Russia,” explained Unisol co-chairperson, V. Tilles, physics teacher at Yugorskii State University, “the Labour Code is one thing, and the life of a university teacher is another. As for that mass trade union, it is not a union, but only an imitation.”

In a very limited number of cases, one-year contracts have been successfully contested in court.8 But even if the courts were friendlier to teachers, it takes an unusual amount of courage to go that route, since experience shows that a determined administration can find other ways to rid itself of “troublemakers.” Sociologist A. Alimpieva, dismissed after twenty years at the Baltic Federal University in Kaliningrad, was told in no uncertain terms by the administration that “any person whosoever can be fired on purely formal grounds,” when she informed it of her intention to contest her short-term contract.9

Of course, the competitions for annual contracts can, and often are, mere formalities for teachers. But the latter are nevertheless painfully aware that the competitions and one-year contracts provide administrators with an easy way to be rid of “disloyal” employees. This can be done, as already noted, by simply failing to announce a new competition for the position when the current contract ends.10 If for some reason that method is not practicable, perhaps because the courses covered by the position are indispensable, an outside candidate can be found, whose selection is guaranteed, regardless of his or her relative qualifications. Alternatively, requirements for the position can be arbitrarily redefined so as to disqualify the incumbent and favour an outsider.11

This method for controlling teaching personnel became available to university administrations thanks to the concentration of power over the previous decade that deprived teachers of the degree of influence they had gained over appointments and promotions following the Soviet Union’s demise. That power was transferred by ministerial decision to academic councils. These are typically packed with administrative personnel and teachers beholden to the administration and can adopt decisions that are contrary even to unanimous recommendations of the members of the department whose position is being filled.

Although both the constitution and the Labour Code forbid discrimination, the courts, even when presented with overwhelming evidence, refuse to intervene in the hiring decisions of academic councils, citing their secret ballots, which, so the court argues, make impossible to know the motives for the vote.12 And if the aggrieved teacher appeals to the ministry, the latter’s typically cites university autonomy as the excuse not to intervene.

Paradoxically—or perhaps not—while teachers have seen their own numbers diminish, they have witnessed the proliferation of administrative positions. Union activists at MFTI reported in 2015 that “from discussions in the rectorate, we have learned that the number of top managers and administrative employees exceeds the number of regular teachers. An example: growth in the ranks of the administration over the last years has led to a situation whereby it no longer takes a day or two to obtain a signature on a document, but between a week to a month, since each document requires the agreement of a greater and greater number of bureaucrats.”13 At Yurgorskii University, reported Tilles, “we have 180 teachers and 100 bosses, eight lawyers and five assistant rectors, each of whom earns 450,000 rubles.14

As one might expect, the insecurity these changes have introduced into the situation of teachers has undermined their professional autonomy and has had a deleterious effect on the work climate, reinforcing the teachers’ tendency toward atomization, a major obstacle to independent organization capable of defending their interests. “The psychological situation is very difficult. To obtain the list of teaching personnel without any personal information from the rector in order to establish the fact of mass dismissals, the union has to accomplish great feats or live in courts. All this creates an atmosphere of fear in the universities: it is enough to fire a few teachers who express opinions different from the rector’s ‘correct’ one.”15

At the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, the local chapter of Unisol complained that “the time-consuming procedure each year for participation in the competition for one’s post creates a nervous and unhealthy atmosphere, distracting teachers from their authentic tasks and degrading them by its bureaucratism and senselessness.”16 A. Alimpieva put it this way: “Besides the political context here, there is also the concrete social vulnerability of university teachers. We are nobody, nothing. We have a contract for one year. No one has to forewarn us two months ahead [that no competition for one’s position will be held]. Is that normal? Jobs were being cut these past years. Why? Because Putin said that a certain salary level is needed; and so, to reach it, they cut positions and increase the workloads. It turns out that janitors have more security than teachers… One has the complete feeling of sovok [slang for Soviet person]. In fact, it is much worse.”17

And as is so often the case, the various aspects of government policy for higher education work at cross purposes. The heightened job insecurity (as well as the inordinate teaching load—to be discussed presently) is at odds with the government’s goal of promoting research in universities, which is a condition for success in international ratings. Serious academic research, let along the establishment of scientific traditions and schools, requires long-term planning and commitment. But “instead of thinking through fundamental questions and working on long-term research projects,” observed sociologist I. Yasaveev, “teachers are worried about publishing as fast as possible to demonstrate their activity, in an effort to hold onto their jobs.”18

b.Remuneration
1.Salary Levels

The government declared that the increase in salaries of university teachers to double the average wage of their respective regions by 2018, as ordered by the May Decrees, was achieved. Rosstat, the state statistical service, reported that the average salary of university teachers in 2018 was 82,486 rubles, equal to 217,7% of the country’s average wage.19

But much evidence casts doubt on this claim. Unisol conducted a survey of university teachers’ salaries in September and November 2017 and continued to collect data throughout most of 2018. It found that the average salary (before income tax, a flat 12%) in those months was close to 38,000 rubles (approximately $585 US), below even the average national wage in 2017 of 39,144 rubles. The majority of the survey’s respondents (who sent photos of their paystubs) were dotsenty, the most numerous category of university teachers.20

With presidential elections set for March 2018, special efforts were made to boost public-sector wages. Not surprisingly, the salaries reported to Unisol for December 2017 were significantly higher than those of the previous months, averaging 57,630 rubles. This was mainly due to unusually high year-end bonuses. V. Dikarev, Unisol activist and geography teacher at Moscow State University, remarked that “The supplement didn’t correspond to any sort of logic. Calculations by activists at MGU indicate that the entire research and teaching staff received [a bonus worth] five times their [guaranteed] base pay.” 21

But the sudden increases turned out to be temporary, leaving salaries far short of the promise of the May Decrees. The Tatarstan branch of the “Alliance of Teachers” (a “virtual” union created by anti-corruption campaigner A. Naval’ny), lodged a complaint with the regional Labour Inspectorate in April 2019 about the low salaries of university teachers that varied between 15,000 and 25,000 rubles, well below the 35,100-rouble regional average.22 Even at MFTI, where salaries are on average among the highest for Russian universities, a typical dotsent earned 75,000 rubles (US $1,071) in October 2018, slightly less than a single average wage in Moscow.23

Besides sudden, non-recurrent bonuses and outright falsifications, various other methods were used to show fulfillment of the May Decrees. Among these was the decision of Rosstat in 2015 to modify the method for calculating average regional wages by including the earnings of workers in the vast informal sector, estimated at a fifth of the workforce and typically among the lowest paid workers in the country.24

University administrations also did their part. A classic method already mentioned was to transfer teachers from full-time status to a fraction of a position but keeping the same salary. This formally raised the individual’s salary, as calculated on a full-time basis. Another method was to shift teachers to civil-labour contracts that are paid pay by the course or by a number of hours. These teachers and their salaries are excluded from calculation of the average. Yet another popular method was to assign high-earning administrators a fraction of a teaching position and then to include their total earnings in the teachers’ average for the university teachers.25 Hence Unisol’s call to use of the median, rather than the “average temperature in the hospital”.

P. Kudyukin, national co-chairperson of Unisol, described a common scene at university assemblies of this time: “The rector or vice-rector proudly cites the average salary, and noise arises in the hall. The assembled begin to look around for the lucky individual or ask to ‘show us that dotsent’.”26

The May Decrees did nothing to reduce the abyss that separated the salaries of top administrators and those of teaching staff. Writing in 2017, philosophy professor V. Afanas’eva, of Saratov State University observed: “The poverty of the majority is especially glaring on the background of the financial well-being of university administrations that shamelessly allow themselves salaries ten, sometimes even a hundred times higher than those of their subordinates, salaries that in Russia are not given even to geniuses. This unnatural and immoral stratification is another important source of the underpayment of teachers.”27

Another problem is the large, arbitrary differences that sometimes exist between the salaries of teachers who occupy similar positions and perform essentially the same work. This was publicly recognized in 2017 by then Minister of Enlightenment O. Vasil’eva: “My colleagues in the audit department have compiled an entire array of schema, whereby university administrations, by raising the income of only certain individuals close to them, don’t really increase the salaries of the teaching collective. This is done according to the principle: you get 20, I get 120—our average is 70.”28 Nor are these differences always a question of individual teachers who are favourites of the administration. At the St. Petersburg Mining University, for example, all the teachers of the “profile” (engineering) faculties earn salaries three to five times higher than those of teachers in the humanities departments.

2. “Efficient Contracts”

As noted, the reform of the public-sector wage system in 2008 eliminated the centralized wage structure inherited from the Soviet Union and gave public institutions broad autonomy in the area of remuneration. The declared aim of the reform was to promote efficiency by strengthening the role of performance incentives, which would henceforth constitute a much larger part of the salary. The new system was to be negotiated between the employees and the administration of the institution, but given the correlation of forces, administrations had a virtually free hand. The result was to introduce large measure of arbitrariness into the remuneration of employees and to significantly widen the gap between the salaries of top administrators and the rest of the employees. The “effective contracts” that followed the May Decrees took this a step further.29

It was left to university administrations to concretize the new bonus system. And as usual, it was done without consultation of the teachers and with blatant violations of the Labour Code, all duly rubber-stamped by Rosobrprof.30 According to Unisol’s survey of teachers’ salaries in 2017-18, as well as numerous other reports from teachers, the non-guaranteed part of remuneration usually varies between 25% and 40% of the total salary, although it can exceed that. (The ministry’s recommendation is 30-35%, and the President’s Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights called for not more than 50%.)

A widespread complaint of teachers is the lack of transparency and the arbitrary character of this bonus system.31 In a striking example from St. Petersburg State University, after the forced merger of the geography, geo-ecology and geology faculties of into a newly-created Institute of Earth Sciences, nearly all the teachers lost their bonuses, which had been until then a regular significant part of their salaries. No explanation was given. This assault became an important factor in the organization of one of the rare mass protests against university reforms.32

“Russia is possibly the only country where teachers don’t know what their salaries will be in the current month,” observed professor of mathematics B. Kashin of Moscow State University. “It depends entirely on the will of the bosses. Meanwhile the incomes of rectors and of those close to them are beating all records, something that (along with the fictitious transfer of teachers to partial employment) helps to report fulfillment of V.V. Putin’s 2012 decrees… And it is no simple matter for trade-union activists, or for a director of a structural division, to find out the real situation. For example, when I learnt from the media that the average teacher’s salary at Moscow State University had reached 136,000 rubles, I went to the dean’s office to ask for information about the average wage in the department that I head. The answer was negative: ‘That information is most personal.’”33

Another frequent complaint of teachers is that bonus criteria are often announced late—in the middle or even at the end of the year. Moreover, they can change suddenly without notice. “The problem is that the demands change every year,” complained a teacher at the St. Petersburg Mining University, “and you are given no warning. And so, when you find out, it is already too late. It becomes a lottery. And each time they try not to include in the bonus some of the things that you have done.”

“Efficient contracts” are supposed to have three main types of indicators, for which are set minimal limits: teaching, scientific work, and social (or public) activity. These are to be defined according to the concrete nature of the person’s position and the profile of the individual’s faculty. But as with so much else, the indicators are adopted without consultation of the teachers and they are often of a dubious nature. For one thing, they fail completely to take into account the inordinate increase in teaching loads (treated in the next section) that has occurred over the last several years.

“Effective contracts” place a particular emphasis on publications, in particular articles in “high-impact” journals that are indexed in international data bases, such as Scopus and WoS, a specific demand of the May Decrees. Apart from the dubious nature of these bibliometric measures for evaluating the quality of research, they discriminate against texts published in Russian or that are of interest mainly to Russians. The emphasis on articles also penalizes teachers who write books. “The demands on publication activity, that grow heavier with each passing year,” complains Unisol at the Higher School of Economics, “leads to a decline in the quality of scientific publications and promotes a formalistic attitude toward research activity. Besides that, in a series of cases, they have a discriminatory character that is contrary to any interest in the development of fundamental scientific directions and to the practical implementation of results obtained.”34 Failure to meet these publication criteria has been used as grounds for dismissal through non-renewal of the employment contract.35

The performance indicators of “effective contracts” often include money brought into the university through grants and commercial contracts, the number of tuition-paying students, the percentage of students that obtain a passing grade, student evaluation of courses. At Ivanovo State University, for example, the effective contract includes promotion of the university among high school students and teachers.36 At the Higher School of Economics students are invited to vote for the best professor, who receives a special bonus.

Some demands of the “effective contract” go well beyond the absurd. At Yugorskii State University, for example, all teachers, including those in the humanities, are supposed to bring in money from experimental-developmental projects (opytno-konstrukorskie raboty). Failure to do that can mean the loss of a bonus equal to half of the average teacher’s salary.37 At Michurin State Agricultural University, according Professor of horticulture A. Verzilin, “In addition to everything else, each of us has to bring in 70,000 rubles in the form of grants, some kind of agricultural work, etc. But what are we capable of doing? We go about, we humiliate ourselves, we offer landscaping services… All this is very slow, but if we don’t bring in money to the university, they look askance at us.”38

The administration of Yugorskii State University adopted the practice of annually certifying the “efficiency” of teachers. In 2018, it found a majority of them to be ineffective. This moved professor Y. Yavoruk, a physicist of international reputation, to resign in disgust: “My beloved university informed me in February that I am not up to muster. That month was my fiftieth birthday, and after my many years of work there, as a gift, they give me notice of my ineffectiveness.”39

Finally, in many institutions, for example the Higher School of Economics, performance according to the criteria of “effective contracts” serves not only a basis for bonuses but also plays a role in decisions on whether to renew contracts. At Moscow State University, the decision to accord a five, three, or one-year contract depends largely on that rating.