Students Rush for Higher Education

Entry exams have finished in Russia's higher education institutions and most students have just learned whether they have been accepted into the colleges of their choice.

Colleges are already reporting two major trends in the selection process for this year. First, following the massive de­cline in applications for higher education in 1992 and 1993 at the height of post-Soviet chaos, the number of prospective students continues to grow. The Educa­tion Ministry expects total admissions to top by 3 or 4 percent the record-break­ing 700,000 students recorded last year.

And the new trend this year is that students are not just choosing courses that promise an immediate boost to their careers. They are also returning to more academic humanities and science facul­ties.

"Despite the apparent fear of unem­ployment, there is in fact a strong de­mand for qualified specialists in a variety of fields. There is a need for people qual­ified not just in economics and law and languages," said Vitaly Pekis, from the informational and analytical centre of the Education Ministry. "Apart from counting money, we will also need somebody who can produce and re­search things," he said.

At the prestigious Moscow State University, demand for places remained high in the directly vocational faculties in this year's entrance exams. There were 4.6 applicants per place in the economics faculty and 5.0 in the law faculty, roughly the same as in 1992. For foreign lan­guages, the ratio was 14.0, well up from 6.7 in 1992. In the computing depart­ment, the applicants per place ratio was 6.8, up from 1.6 in 1992. But in other less vocational faculties, demand also grew. In psychology, there are 10.3 applicants per place, up from only 4.1 in 1992, in geology the ratio rose to 4.6 from 1.6 and geography to 7.0 from 1.9.

The increasing interest in college ed­ucation reflects the view that higher education is a meal ticket in the new market economy and the only way to avoid the increasing risk of unemployment.

"Look at all the adds in the newspa­pers. There are hardly any that do not re­quire a higher education diploma or even more often a very specific qualifi­cation," said Ilya Ilyin, the president of the Moscow State University Student Council. He has just completed a degree in paleontology, the study of dinosaurs, and plans to continue to post-graduate study

The rate of application has also rebounded in response to new policies making it easier for people in the provinces to apply.

Universities have revived an old So­viet tradition of sending teams of profes­sors to the provinces to conduct entrance exams, saving youngsters the expense of travelling to the big city.

"There is now a lot more activity in the regions themselves in promoting higher education, to the point that some governors and mayors open branches of major national universities in order to make higher education more accessi­ble," Pekis said.

Some governors open fully-fledged campuses in their regions with links to big universi­ties, others simply make it easier for na­tional colleges to conduct local exams that are accessible to provincial students.

   b) Answer the following questions:

1) What is the title of the article?

2) Who is it written by?

3) What newspaper was the article published in, and when?

4) What is the main topic of the article?

4) How many trends in the selection process are registered according to the article?

5) What are those trends?

6) How many people (except the author herself) are quoted in the article? Give their names.

7) Where do they work?

8) Who said that there is in fact a strong de­mand for qualified specialists in a variety of fields?

8) What tendency is observed in the demand for places at the prestigious Moscow State University in 1997 compared to 1992?

9) Is it true that very few advertisements in the newspa­pers re­quire a higher education diploma or even a very specific qualifi­cation?

10) How do the Universities help people in the provinces to apply?

11) How do governors and mayors in some regions and cities make higher education more accessi­ble for the youngsters?

12) What conclusion concerning the development of higher education in Russia can we draw from the facts, which are given in this article?

13) Are the prospects of our education optimistic or pessimistic?

14) Did you like the article? Why?

15) Which of the following diagrams (A, B or C) reflects the data about the demand for places at Moscow State University most accurately?

   c) Study an approximate plan for rendering a newspaper article together with several useful expressions.

1. Headline of the article, title of the newspaper, month, year of publication, author of the article.

- The headline of the article is...

- The title of the newspaper is...

- The article is entitled...

- The article under the title… was published in…(newspaper) №… on…(date).

- The author is…, the correspondent of…

- The article is written by…

2. Main topic (idea) of the newspaper article.

- The main idea of the article is…

- The article is devoted to the problem of...

- The article touches upon...

- The article tells the readers about...

- The author discusses an important problem of ...

3. Main contents of the article (main idea of each paragraph).

- The article emphasises the idea of...

- The author believes that...

- The article reports that...

- The author points out that…

- The article informs that…

- The author analyses how...

- The author examines why...

- In examining the problem the author points out…

- According to the author...

- The author calls attention to the fact that...

4. Conclusions of the author.

- The author comes to the conclusion that...

- In conclusion the article reads...

- In summing up the author...

- At the end of the article the author sums up...

- Evaluating the situation the conclusion can be drawn that...

5. Your attitude towards the article.

- On reading the article we (I) realise the fact that...

- In conclusion I can say...

- I find the article useful/informative/interesting/up-to-date/disputable…

   d) Using the plan and your answers to the questions from XII (b) render the article “Students rush for higher education” in written form.

XIII. a) Read the text about the academy you study at.

The Siberian Automobile and Highway Academy was founded in 1930, but until December 1998 it had the status of an institute. At the time of its foundation the institute had only two departments: Road Construction and Automobiles with the total number of students of 280 people. Later, in August 1931, according to the Higher Education Ministry Order two faculties were established: the Road Construction Faculty with 10 chairs and the Automobile Transport Faculty with 8 chairs. The first rector of the institute was Nikita Gerassimovitch Gladkov.

During World War II over 60 per cent of the students and many instructors took part in the military actions. The teaching staff and the students of the institute raised enough money to build a battle plane and a tank, and to buy warm clothes for the soldiers.

Nowadays the Siberian Automobile and Highway Academy is a huge educational, scientific-exploratory and manufacturing complex, which trains specialists of various profiles.

Many outstanding professors, doctors of science, honoured scientists of the USSR worked and are working at the academy. For example, Ulyanov N.A., Anokhin A.J., Alexeyeva T.V., Tolmatchev K.Kh., Artemyev K.A. and others. Their works are translated into many languages of the world.

The academy has six faculties: Automobile Transport Faculty, Road Making and Construction Machinery, Civil Engineering Faculty, Highway Engineering Faculty, Economic Engineering Faculty and the Faculty of Extra-budget Education. Over 5000 students study at these faculties.

The academy has now 39 chairs (17 of them train the fifth-year students) and Postgraduate Department. It also has Research Centre, Centre of Arts, Scientific Library, Publishing Department, experimental school 149, Sanatorium, Sport and Recreation Camp, and four hostels. Computing Centre of the Academy has been functioning for about 30 years. It has already survived several generations of computers. Today it operates over 200 computers, 60 of which being connected into local nets. The centre also provides the students and the teaching staff of the academy with an excellent opportunity to work with such a wonderful facility as Internet.

Graduates of the academy are engineers, mechanics, builders, economists, and managers, who work successfully both in Russia and abroad.

   b) Imagine that you are the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the academy. You have just read the advertisement that your colleagues at the Advertisement Department had written (the text above). (a) Please compose a questionnaire of 10 or 15 questions to study the effectiveness of this advertisement. (b) Give this questionnaire together with the text of the advertisement to four or five of you friends or group-mates and ask them to answer the questions in writing. (c) Study the answers and write at home a report of 150-200 words evaluating the effectiveness of the advertisement.

XIV. a) Before reading the following text answer several questions:

1. Is the Academy you study at a state educational institution or a private one?

2. What do you know about private universities and institutes abroad with respect to the quality of education, their reputation, prestige, prospects of their graduates to get a good job?

3. Are the universities of Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford and Yale private or state? Where are they situated?

4. Are there any private universities or institutes in Russia? …in Omsk?

5. What is your personal attitude towards them? How do you estimate the quality of education in those universities and institutes?

6. Are the diplomas of any Russian universities recognized abroad, for example, in the United States of America?

   b) Now read the interview with Natalya Nesterova, Academician and Professor, rector of a private university, and check your answers to some of the preceding questions.