According to changes in legislation, distance learning of jurisprudence is prohibited for persons who do not have higher education

From September 1, 2017, the decision of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation regarding the ban on distance learning of law for those applicants who do not have a completed higher education comes into force.

The new educational standard is designed to improve the quality of education for future law graduates.

On the one hand, such a solution has many advantages: full-time higher education implies a larger (compared to part-time) amount of information given by the teaching staff, a greater number of hours of practical training that contribute to the development of skills. Jurisprudence is, first of all, a huge amount of information. Every day, normative legal acts are adopted that regulate almost all spheres of our life, and future graduates should be well versed in all these changes.

On the other hand, thousands of applicants this year expected to be able to choose a correspondence course for their law degree. Information from the admissions committee takes them by surprise. Applicants directly ask the question: "What to do?"

The majority simply does not know about the existence of the part-time form, or it seems unusual to them, causing alertness.

According to this form, students will study on a weekday after work and on Saturday morning, that is, twice a week. So, for example, students are engaged in.

Part-time students will attend lectures, seminars, practical classes, and on other days they will study on their own. The teaching staff will be able to assess and, most importantly, help the student master the material at an early stage.

Why is this form of education better than daytime? The answer depends only on the personality of the student himself, on his motivation and career goals.

Some students are able to study only under the guidance of a "mentor", they believe that it is possible to prepare and become a good lawyer by devoting only the time allocated for the session to this. During the intersessional period, such students do not study. Here, probably, lies the problem - the correspondence form for this category of people is contraindicated.

At the same time, there are students who are able to regularly open the textbook and regulatory legal acts and analyze the information received. Many people find it very helpful to assimilate information by working in a similar specialty, where they willy-nilly have to turn to the text of the law and develop the skills to prepare documents. Correspondence form of education would be suitable for these categories of students.

Altai Institute of Economics SPbUTUiE provides admission to study in educational programs of higher education for full-time and part-time forms in the areas of training: management, economics, jurisprudence and full-time part-time in jurisprudence.

The admission campaign in Russian universities is coming to an end. The main intrigue this year was the fate of distance learning programs in a number of specialties, in particular, legal and economic. At least after a number of statements by representatives of relevant departments, the media wrote about the ban on distance learning for lawyers and economists from September 1 of this year, almost like a fait accompli. However, Izvestia found out that the Ministry of Education and Science has no plans to change anything in the near future.

To abandon this form of education, it is necessary to change the state standard, - Maxim Nazarov, Vice-Rector of the RANEPA, explained to Izvestia. - New federal educational standards are planned only from 2017, so at least until September 1 next year, the correspondence form will exist. It is possible that some special law will be issued earlier that will abolish this, but so far this is impossible: it is impossible to cancel the correspondence form of education just by order of the minister.

Oleg Smolin, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Education, told Izvestiya that, being categorically disagreeing with this initiative, he sent a request to the head of the Ministry of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov, in which he tried to explain that this decision was erroneous and "will lead to colossal harmful consequences."

I received a response on five pages, - says the parliamentarian. - Four and a half pages - quotes from the laws that I know. Half the page contains things that I, in general, also know, but they are important. The answer says that such changes can only be introduced on the basis of changes in the state educational standards of higher education. And now the ministry has no proposals on this matter. That is, the issue has been postponed for at least a year, which is not bad. Although earlier this was talked about as a probable fact from September 1 of this year. In fact, it was postponed until next year, and for the coming year, as you know, “either the vizier, or Hodge, or the donkey ...”

While no specific decisions have been made in the government, the initiative continues to cause heated discussions. A number of experts and heads of universities are convinced that in such important specialties as jurisprudence, people should be trained with the maximum teaching load.

We do not have correspondence education: we are sure that high-quality education can only be carried out in person in the classroom, - Zarema Kasabieva, Vice-Rector of the Russian Economic School, told Izvestiya. - The basis of our master's education is the personal contact of the professor with the student. If the decision to abolish distance education in a number of specialties is taken, over time this may affect the situation in the country as a whole. It seems strange when lawyers study only by correspondence, from textbooks. It is not for nothing that in American universities this is a difficult, very intense training in classrooms, with full involvement. And here you can only come to take exams, and sometimes, unfortunately, for money. I don’t want to offend anyone: in Soviet times there was an excellent correspondence law university, but in fact there was daytime and evening education.

However, Igor Remorenko, Vice-Rector of the Moscow State Pedagogical University, believes that modern methods and technologies allow working students to master academic disciplines in full. There should not be any difficulties for people who study and work due to distance technologies and e-learning, he believes.

RANEPA Vice-Rector Maxim Nazarov agrees that lawyers should be taught more carefully. At the same time, in his opinion, the closure of distance learning in other specialties would be redundant.

People with secondary vocational education who work in municipalities often go to state and municipal administration - they need specialized education. To close the correspondence form for this specialty, in my opinion, is not worth it, says Nazarov.

People who already work in the field of management, small business, have a lot of experience, as a rule, with distance learning they show a higher level of knowledge than those who receive their first education at the hospital, MP Oleg Smolin agrees. - I am now in Omsk helping to get a free education at a private university to the head of a local organization of the disabled. A very smart woman. She will not be a professional lawyer, but she badly needs a legal education to work at the head of a public organization. We have a paradoxical situation: on the one hand, our government is trying to turn us all into lawyers - Russian laws are such that it is impossible for a normal person to read them. On the other hand, it also suggests that we give legal education only to those who study full-time.

According to experts, up to 70% of law students receive education in absentia in various kinds of regional universities. Formally, their status after receiving a diploma is no different from the status of graduates of the best universities. These people become investigators, judges, prosecutors. And this inspires fear for many.

Limit recruitment rules to the professions of judges, prosecutors, etc. certain universities, if you think that education in other universities is of poor quality, Oleg Smolin objects to this. - On this basis, you cannot violate the rights of other people, especially since you are forcibly forcing them to become lawyers.

Gennady Esakov, head of the department of criminal law at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, believes that Smolin's proposal will not solve the problem: if you determine the list of universities whose graduates are eligible to hold certain positions, it will expand indefinitely, he told Izvestia.

Gennady Esakov noted that correspondence legal education is a relic of the Soviet era, when, after the defeat of the tsarist law school, the Bolsheviks faced the need to train personnel. As they were promoted, employees with the right social background and primary education entered correspondence universities and had a diploma by the time they took a higher position.

However, now this is an anachronism, Gennady Esakov believes, and offers two options for solving the problem: either really eliminate distance learning for lawyers as such, or leave it, but introduce a system of qualification exams for judges, prosecutors and lawyers.

The head of Rosobrnadzor, Sergei Kravtsov, announced an impending ban on correspondence and distance education in universities in a number of humanitarian specialties. The restriction is planned to be introduced from September 1 this year. It will affect such popular areas as jurisprudence, economics, public administration and municipal administration.

Sergey Kravtsov said that the first higher education should be full-time, and limiting opportunities for receiving correspondence or distance education will improve the quality of higher education in the country. The initiative of Rosobrnadzor received support from the Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov, according to which the disciplines of the general professional cycle, special disciplines and the practical part of education cannot be provided in the correspondence mode.

The plans for a total ban on distance learning in the humanities are an attempt by the regulatory agencies to continue, using new methods, a campaign to weed out the so-called "sharashka offices" - universities that provide purely formal training for students, but in fact are "shops" for the sale of diplomas. Apparently, the positive report of Minister Livanov does not fully correspond to the real situation in the field of education. It is doubtful that the ban on distance learning will help solve the problem of the low level of higher education in Russia, but it will deprive many young people from low-income families and remote regions of the opportunity to get a higher education.

Improvement through reduction

For the first time, plans to ban distance education for lawyers and economists were discussed in the Ministry of Education in March 2016, such an initiative was made by representatives of educational and methodological associations in the field of management, economics and law. In particular, HSE Rector Yaroslav Kuzminov advocated the abolition of correspondence and distance learning, in his opinion, up to 60% of all correspondence students are preparing to become lawyers and economists.

Representatives of the professional community, in turn, condemned this plan, and the Federal Chamber of Lawyers issued a critical review. According to FPA Vice-President Svetlana Volodina, part-time graduates not only are not inferior to their “full-time” colleagues, but on the contrary, they often master the profession with much greater motivation, combining study with work in their specialty. The presence of poor specialists in the legal labor market has nothing to do with distance learning - often these are graduates of full-time departments. There are examples of lawyers who have received education in absentia, but have reached great heights in the profession - this is, in particular, the chairman of the Moscow City Court Olga Egorova, the head of the department of the Moscow State Law Academy named after O.E. Kutafin Anatoly Kucherena and Plenipotentiary of the Government of the Russian Federation in the higher courts Mikhail Barshchevsky.

The initiative of the Ministry of Education also caused bewilderment in the State Duma: the first deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Education, Oleg Smolin, said that he sees no point in banning correspondence and distance learning in the humanities. “We need to go by evaluating the quality of training. When assessing students, invite representatives of employers, Rosobrnadzor, check the quality of education at the exit, do not artificially block people from receiving education at the entrance,” the deputy noted.

According to experts, among full-time graduates the percentage of specialists with a low level of professional training is not lower than among part-time graduates: in the context of a general decline in the quality of education, personal motivation of students comes to the fore. People who are clearly aware of the goal of obtaining a diploma of higher education and striving to succeed in their chosen profession study better than students who enrolled out of fear of military service or simply for the sake of "crust" - this pattern is true for any form of education.

If the ban on part-time and part-time education in such a specialty as a pharmacist-pharmacist can still be explained by the need for students to participate in practical classes (the corresponding restriction has been discussed since 2013), then such restrictions in relation to humanitarian profiles look illogical.

Proponents of simple solutions

The problem of the decline in the quality of higher education in Russia really exists - it is considered a great achievement, until recently Russia was represented in international rankings by only five educational institutions. And this despite the fact that Soviet education in engineering and technical specialties was considered one of the best in the world, and.

Nevertheless, the problem, which is hardly of a complex nature, can be solved with the help of non-constructive measures of a targeted nature.

Unfortunately, the decision to close correspondence and distance learning in a number of specialties will deal a serious blow to the social elevators that still exist in Russia: despite the fact that the maximum student scholarship today is about six thousand rubles, not all young people can afford to study full-time . For many, distance or part-time education remains the only affordable way to increase their value in the labor market and move to a new step in the social ladder. Of course, it can be argued that full-time students also earn extra money in the evenings so as not to be a burden on the family, but the financial independence of a student who combines full-time studies and work is rather an exception. In addition, not all cities have a wide labor market for students; the possibility of such a part-time job is only in the largest administrative centers like Moscow and St. Petersburg. In addition, many lawyers, having received a specialized secondary education, go to work in their profession, while continuing their distance learning at a university - why deprive people of career opportunities?

By limiting distance learning, the Cabinet is in no hurry to increase scholarships for full-time students. Last year, the government rejected a bill that proposed raising payments to the subsistence level, agreeing only to index them by 4%. At present, the state considers student scholarships not as a way to support students while they are pursuing a profession, but as a “stimulus payment”, the amount of which can be arbitrarily low.

Unable to put things in order in the higher education system (after all, Rosobrnadzor itself issued accreditation to the so-called “sharashkin offices”), not wanting to support talented young people financially, officials prefer to resort to thoughtless bans, believing that they will have a positive effect.

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Distance learning has been one of the most affordable (in terms of cost) ways to get higher education.

« Universities want to abandon part-time education”- such a statement was made by the First Deputy Minister of Education of the Chelyabinsk Region Elena Kouzova at a press conference in the editorial office of AiF-Chelyabinsk. The elimination of distance learning will affect the vast majority of universities throughout the country. In its place will come full-time form. Students will attend couples in the evenings all year round, with tuition nearly doubling.

It will not be so easy to get a second higher education or “finish your studies” while being employed. Six weeks a year and two exam sessions will be a thing of the past along with the most affordable education.

“In our university, admission to distance learning ends on September 5, 2018,- says Anatoly Yakushev, director of the Chelyabinsk branch of the Financial University. - From 2019, part-time education will replace part-time education. It will be held in the evenings three times a week for the entire academic year. P o two couples from 18.20 to 21.30 and on Saturdays. Learning will be more difficult. Imagine running to class after work, hungry and tired because you don't want to be late. This time. The second is the price. In 2018, distance learning at the university costs around 45 thousand rubles, a "point" - 110 thousand. So take the average amount, part-time will cost about 80-90 thousand rubles. "Evening" education brings us back to the Soviet past, when absenteeism was almost zero. At the school, there is still a certain Russian sloppiness in relation to study».

« Changes are related to the quality of student training, - explains the first deputy minister of education of the Chelyabinsk region Elena Kouzova. - "Zaochka" assumes complete independence and responsibility of the student himself, on part-time form, responsibility for the level of knowledge, including the responsibility of teachers.

We will be able to say about the features of the reform only by the beginning of the next academic year, when we will be familiar with all the orders of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation».

Another question arises: are all universities ready to increase the burden not only on students, but also on teachers.

« There will be no questions about the lack of faculty- continues Elena Kouzova. - Universities have no problems with personnel now. As for the other mode of work - outside the regular time, colleagues have the opportunity to earn extra money absolutely legally, officially and within the framework of the subject that they know well».

Talks about the abolition of distance learning began in 2016. Then the head of the federal Rosobrnadzor, Sergey Kravtsov, announced that from September 1, 2018, part-time education in legal, economic areas, as well as the direction of "state and municipal management" will be canceled.

SUSU confirmed that at the moment there is no part-time education, for example, in such areas as architecture and English, jurisprudence by correspondence is possible only for those who receive a second degree. But Moscow State University has not been accepting students for a long time, but this is an independent decision of the university management.

From September 1, 2016, it is planned to exclude part-time education in universities - for economists, lawyers and managers who receive higher education for the first time, said the head of Rosobrnadzor Sergey Kravtsov in an interview with the Rossiya 1 TV channel on Sunday, June 19. According to the official, the first higher education should be full-time, which will improve the quality of education and "seriously undermine the economic basis of pseudo-universities." RIA Voronezh correspondent found out how students, their parents, universities and employers feel about the prospect of partial cancellation of distance learning.

Students. Less interest in colleges

Anastasia Kavelina studies the economics of enterprises and organizations at the correspondence department of one of the Voronezh universities. The girl works in her specialty. A third of the students in her group are people aged 30-40, for whom this education is the second higher education. According to Anastasia, the first higher education at the “external school” is received mainly by those who already have a college or technical school diploma.

– Back in the ninth grade, I planned that after college I would work and simultaneously receive higher education. If distance learning is canceled for economists, managers and lawyers, many simply will not go to college. I have a full-time job, I “distract” from work every six months, for the duration of the session, Anastasia Kavelina said.

According to Anastasia, working part-time students pay tax on the income of individuals, while the state does not allocate money for their education.

- Correspondence economic education is paid in almost all universities, - the student reminded.

Universities. "Pitchfork on the Water"

In all universities, where the RIA Voronezh correspondent turned for comment, they said that they had not received any orders from the Ministry of Education and Science regarding the closure of the correspondence department for lawyers and economists. The university admissions campaign is in full swing.

At the Voronezh State Forest Engineering University (VGLTU), students are admitted to the correspondence department in two areas - "management" and "economics". Education is paid, there are no budget places. In 2016, the university planned to accept 50 managers and 60 economists.

- Talk about the elimination of correspondence education has been going on for many years, but all this has been written with a pitchfork in the water. We have not received any documents from the Ministry of Education and Science, and therefore the conversations are premature, - explained in the Morozov VGLTU.

The Voronezh State University of Engineering Technologies (VSUIT), which also trains economists, managers and executives in absentia, refused to comment on Kravtsov's words, citing the fact that "Rosobrnadzor is the pinnacle of power in education."

- It is naive to think that someone will speak out about the decision of the authorities. If the Ministry of Education and Science is an employer, then Rosobrnadzor is the police, - the university explained.

At the same time, VSUIT believes that current economists and part-time lawyers, as well as those who enter in 2016, should hardly be worried. Even if the Ministry of Education decides to cancel distance learning and an official letter is sent to the university, the process of making changes to educational standards will begin. This will take a lot of time.

Employers. Distance learning will be replaced by distance learning

Employers interviewed by a RIA Voronezh correspondent agree that it is not so much the form of training a specialist is important as his competence.

According to Lev Babayan, head of the Pragmatik legal support agency, the liquidation of correspondence departments at law faculties is a negative phenomenon.

- Young professionals who have just graduated from universities, but already have work experience, will disappear from the labor market. The advantages of part-time students are that they quickly adapt and are able to negotiate. In addition, not everyone has the opportunity to pay for full-time education. Although I prefer full-time students, because to work in my company, even a person with experience must be trained. Full-time students have lower salary expectations, they have not yet learned to shirk work, Babayan explained.

For Dmitry Nekrasov, director of the Young Business School, the form of employee training is unimportant. The main thing is the interest in the work, the desire to grow and be able to independently study the topics necessary for work.

Distance education will replace distance learning. Some universities already teach economics, management and law via the Internet. The advantage of distance learning is that it can be combined with work, and in practice you can understand what you are given in theory, - said Nekrasov.

Parents. The main plus of the “zachki” is the price

In 2014, the son of Irina Soldatova Denis, after school, entered the correspondence department at a Moscow university, where he studies investment management. The cost of education is about 70 thousand rubles a year. Denis lives in Voronezh, works for an insurance company and has been paying for his studies on his own for two years now.

- My son wanted to enter the Faculty of Economics of the Voronezh State University, but he did not have enough points. We would not have pulled paid full-time education - then it cost somewhere around 70-80 thousand rubles. The son gave documents to the correspondence department of a Moscow university. Training cost 50 thousand rubles. We thought that it makes no sense to go to the correspondence department in Voronezh, when you can enter the capital's university, - explained Irina Soldatova.

Irina said that the daughter of her acquaintances is receiving a legal education in absentia and at the same time works in a construction company, where, under the guidance of a more experienced lawyer, she learns to draw up documents. At work, her diploma is only expected in the personnel department.

Lawyers. Current students need not worry

After the statement of the head of Rosobrnadzor on the abolition of distance learning for lawyers and economists, parents and students began to fear that the “cleansing” would affect those who were already studying in these specialties. According to lawyer Dmitry Kazatsker, this is hardly possible.

- If changes are made to the regulations prohibiting distance learning, they should not affect legal relations (concluded agreements) that arose between the university and students before the adoption of the amendments. According to the legislation, the new provision may apply, for example, to new student groups that will be formed after the changes come into force, Dmitry Kazatsker explained.

Ministry of Education. So far no change

In Rosobrnadzor, the correspondent of RIA Voronezh was sent to the Ministry of Education and Science, since Sergey Kravtsov only repeated the words of Minister Dmitry Livanov.

The Ministry of Education and Science stated that no changes related to correspondence departments are planned from September 1, 2016. The department also explained that various educational and methodological associations periodically propose to the ministry to eliminate distance learning, but the matter has not yet gone beyond talk.

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