OREANDA-NEWS. May 31, 2011. The Expert Council at the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) for Development of Competition in Education and Science, with participation of representatives of Rosobrnadzor [the Federal Service for Control over Education], the Department of Education of the City of Moscow, the heads of research and educational organizations, discussed the system of additional professional education in terms of complying with the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The Council discussed proposals to the draft Federal Law “On Education in the Russian Federation” regarding additional professional education in terms of compliance with the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”, aimed at equality of rights and conditions of work of educational institutions of additional professional education and educational organizations of higher professional education that provide training under the programmes for additional professional education.

One of the most important issues discussed by the Council was state accreditation of educational organizations of additional professional education.

At the moment state accreditation is required for educational institutions that have educational programmes subject to state educational standards or federal state requirements. An educational institution can issue state-recognized documents only for accredited programmes - Part 2 Article 27 of the Federal Law “On Education in the Russian Federation” (further on referred to as the law on education). Under Clause 9 of the law on education, in the cases specified by the federal law, the federal state requirements can be set for the minimum content of additional professional educational programme and the level of professional re-training by the federal executive body exercising the functions of developing state policy and regulation in education.

It means that for the majority of programmes, including the re-training programmes, state-recognized documents must not be issued, particularly, by university-level institutions; therefore, many organizations of additional professional education will not be nationally accredited under any programme.

At the same time, until 2011 the authorized government authorities in the field of education certified programmes for additional professional education, for which state standards and state requirements were not established. However, in breach of the existing law universities were granted state accreditation under all programmes of additional professional education in line with the main educational programmes of a university. At the same time, the list of accredited programmes of additional professional education were not specified in the appendices to the certificates of accreditation.

Therefore, until now universities have been issuing state-recognized documents for the programmes of additional professional education, for which state requirements are not established, that considerably diminishes competitive ability of institutions of additional professional education.

In view of the above, members of the Expert Council recommended to the Russian Ministry of Education:

- To make amendments to the draft Federal Law “On Education in the Russian Federation”, which would provide opportunities for obtaining national accreditation for the programmes of additional professional education in the part of re-training specialists;

- In order to protect competition on the market of educational services in the field of additional professional education, it is necessary to adopt regulations abolishing the requirement for accrediting the programmes of additional professional education and prohibit issuing state-recognized documents upon the results of passing the above programmes, which must be mandatory for educational organizations of additional professional education, as well as for the universities providing training under the programmes of additional professional education (except re-training specialists).