On December 10 Philip G. Altbach, Research Professor and founding director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College has visited MEPhI, where he took part in the discussion of the internationalization of higher education.
The meeting was opened by the rector of MEPhI M.N. Strikhanov, who welcomed the audience – all those interested in finding ways to develop the international component of the University. In his opening speech the rector suggested the main idea of the meeting, “Now we are creating a new culture of the University, a new open global University that can attract students, lecturers and scientists from around the world”.
In his lecture, Philip Altbach presented his vision of the concept of “world class University”, as well as the main trends of modern higher education that affect all representatives of this field, regardless of the country or type of the University.
According to the Professor from Boston College, now we are in the middle of the global scientific and educational revolution, “Perhaps not everyone feels this, but the process is going. There are a lot of transformations, comparable in importance with the creation of the first research University in the early 19th century in Germany”. He called massification of Universities as one of the key elements of changes. Now education covers a substantial percentage of the relevant age group. Having undoubted advantages this phenomenon is accompanied by the decline in the quality of education, since it is impossible to ensure equal level of training for increased number of students. In addition, it requires additional funding, which leads to the next trend – privatisation of public higher education, when universities have to find resources themselves and receives only about 15% of its annual budget from the state.
The process of massification was opposed with the transition to the knowledge based economy, which contributes to the rise of research universities, which possess the most advanced technologies and actively participate in the globalization process.
According to Philip Altbach, a modern world-class University has the following characteristics: it focuses on research activities (as reflected in global rankings of universities), has the necessary resource capacity, employs the best scientists and lecturers from all over the world, produces highly skilled professionals who are trained in the largest research centers, organizes and participates in global forums and conferences.
Philip Altbach said that MEPhI is particularly interesting University because it has a long reputation and distinguished achievements in the scientific field, which is highly specialized. The nuclear industry and related to it, which are actively developing in the University, are really important at a global stage. In this regard, it is essential to establish contacts with other scientists, to communicate outside and share experiences. “You're holding a real treasure; now you need to learn how to use it”, concluded F. Altbach.
Then representatives of the MEPhI project office told about those successes which have already been achieved in the process of increasing its internationalization, and what still remains to be done.
The event could be resulted by the words of Philip Altbach that “our discussion takes 5 minutes, whereas implementation requires a lot of effort, time and a huge amount of resources”.
