European integration of the systems of higher education of Belarus and Armenia

Authors

  • Larissa G. Titarenko Belarusian State University, 4 Niezaliežnasci Avenue, Minsk 220030, Belarus
  • Maria I. Zaslavskaya Yerevan State University, 1 Manukyan Street, Yerevan 0025, Armenia

Keywords:

system of higher education, European integration, Belarus, Armenia, modernization, competitiveness
Supporting Agencies
The article was prepared with the financial support of Belarusian Republican Foundation for Fundamental Research (grant No. Г17АРМ-017) and State Science Committee? the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Armenia (grant No. АБ16-11), and Program of Development of scientific research, Russian-Armenian University.

Abstract

The paper is focused on the processes of integration of the systems of higher education in the Republic of Belarus and Republic of Armenia into the European educational space. The aim of the article is the comparative analysis of the present results of these processes reached by two countries. This analysis revealed some common problems and difficulties in the European integration of these two countries, regardless of the fact that Armenia joint the European educational space in 2005 while Belarus joint only in 2015. Both systems of higher education cannot completely accept the rules imposed by European educational space, as they want to keep their own national educational priorities and get the benefits from the European integration. The research results show that that any educational unions are becoming today a political tool, therefore joining the European educational space without adapting its principles to the socio-historical specifics of each country does not contribute to a practical increase in competitiveness of higher education systems in Armenia and Belarus and does not improve the quality of education. The obtained results demonstrate the new (European) status of the higher education systems of the two post-Soviet republics, not supported by the growth of exports of their educational services or by a visible improvement in the quality of education.

Author Biographies

  • Larissa G. Titarenko, Belarusian State University, 4 Niezaliežnasci Avenue, Minsk 220030, Belarus

    doctor of science (sociology), full professor; professor at the department of sociology, faculty of philosophy and social sciences

  • Maria I. Zaslavskaya, Yerevan State University, 1 Manukyan Street, Yerevan 0025, Armenia

    doctor of science (sociology), full professor; professor at the department of applied sociology

References

  1. Markovich DJ. [Economics of education and sociology of education in front of the challenges of globalization and virtualization of education]. In: Vserossiiskaya sotsiologicheskaya konferentsiya «Obrazovanie i obshchestvo»; 20–22 oktyabrya 2009 g.; Moskva, Rossiya [Report at the All-Russian sociological conference «Education and Society»; 2009 October 20–22; Moscow, Russia] [Internet]. Moscow: Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences; 2009 [cited 2018 August 18]. Available from: http://www.ssa-rss.ru/files/File/Doclad/ markovich.pdf. Russian.
  2. Voevoda EV, Belogurov AJu. [Axiology of education in the discourse of modern politics]. Polis. 2018;6:172–179. Russian.
  3. Communication from the commission to the European parliament, the council, the European economic and social committee and the committee of the regions on a renewed EU agenda for higher education [Internet] [cited 2018 September 18]. Available from: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1542026634911&uri=CELEX:52017DC0247.
  4. State Program of the innovation development of the Republic of Belarus for 2016–2020 [Internet] [cited 2016 February 10]. Available from: http://www.gknt.gov.by/opencms/opencms/ru/innovation/inn2/. Russian.
  5. Avetisyan PS, Zaslavskaya MI, editors. Modernizatsiya sistemy vysshego obrazovaniya Armenii v kontekste integratsionnykh protsessov [Modernization of the system of higher education of Armenia in the context of integration process]. Yerevan: Russian-Armenian University; 2017. Russian.
  6. Zakaryan L. The reform of the educational system in the Republic of Armenia from the view of the Bologna process. Region i mir. 2015;2:78–84. Russian.
  7. Statistical yearbook of Armenia 2017. Yerevan: National Statistical Service of the Republic of Armenia; 2018.
  8. Atanesyan AV. «Velvet revolution» in Armenia: potential, achievements and risks of the political protest activity. Polis. Political studies. 2018;6:80–98. DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2018.06.06.
  9. Chvorostov A, Hauschieldt K. International student mobility in Armenia, Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine [Internet]. November 2016 [cited 2017 June 5]. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310843013_International_student_mobility_in_Armenia_Georgia_Russia_and_Ukraine/figures?lo=1.
  10. Avetisyan PS, Galikyan GE, Zaslavskaya MI. [On some problems of reforming higher education in the post-Soviet countries in the light of Eurasian integration]. Nauchnaya mysl’. 2016;4(22):5–15. Russian.
  11. Gladkov GI. [Bologna process in Russia: «road map»]. In: Belov VA, Entin ML, Gladkov GI, Kolesov VP, Tkachenko EL, Yakovlev SM, Cherkovets MV. Bolonskii protsess i ego znachenie dlya Rossii. Integratsiya vysshego obrazovaniya v Evrope [Bologna process and its meaning for Russia. Integration of higher education in Europe]. Moscow: Russian-European Сentre for Economic Policy; 2005. p. 68–80. Russian.
  12. Ivanchik AI. Reforms of education and science in Russia and Georgia: who needs and who should not be imitated [Internet]. 2013 February 20 [cited 2018 March 20]. Available from: http://archives.colta.ru/docs/14183. Russian.
  13. Ranking of world countries by education. 2018 [Internet] [cited 2018 November 22]. Available from: https://nonews.co/directory/lists/countries/education. Russian.
  14. Tolkacheva E. First Deputy Foreign Minister about Belarus’s relations with Russia and the EU: Tango alone will not dance [Internet]. 2018 November 5 [cited 2018 November 5]. Available from: https://news.tut.by/economics/614380.html. Russian.
  15. Spasiuk E. Education in Belarus: one foot in the Bologna process, the other in the USSR [Internet]. 2017 March 21 [cited 2017 March 22]. Available from: https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/alena-spasjuk/belarus-mejdu-bolonskim-processom-sssr. Russian.
  16. Spasiuk E. Who is driving the last nail into the coffin of the Belarusian education? [Internet]. 2017 November 26 [cited 2017 November 26]. Available from: http: //naviny.by/article/20171126/1511689817-kto-vbivaet-posledniy-gvozd-v-kryshku-groba-belorusskogo-obrazovaniya. Russian.
  17. Minobr: Belarus develops its education system in accordance with the Bologna principles [Internet]. 2018 May 29 [cited 2018 May 29]. Available from: https://news.tut.by/society/594667.html. Russian.
  18. Liessmann KP. Theorie der Unbildung. Die Irrtümer der Wissensgesellschaft. Wien: Zsolnay; 2006.
  19. Shelest O. Social base of transformation programs in Belarus [Internet]. 2017 March 13 [cited 2017 February 11]. Available from: https://cet.eurobelarus.info/ru/library/publication/2017/03/13. Russian.
  20. Azheronok ID, Denishchik NA, Nesterov AP. Sistema obrazovaniya Respubliki Belarus’ v tsifrakh [System of education of the Republic of Belarus in numbers]. Minsk: Establishment «Chief Information and Analytical Center of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus»; 2018. Russian.
  21. Spasiuk E. Why Belarusian students flee the country [Internet]. 2016 November 30 [cited 2017 February 14]. Available from: https://naviny.by/article/ 20161130/1480485195-pochemu-belorusskie-studenty-begut-iz-strany. Russian.
  22. Zaslavskaya MI. [On some problems of reforming the system of higher education in Armenia in the context of system integration processes]. Sotis. 2018;5:15–22. Russian.

Downloads

Published

2019-06-21

Issue

No. 1 (2019): Journal of the Belarusian State University. Sociology

Section

From the Working Table of a Sociologist

License

The authors who are published in this journal agree to the following:

  1. The authors retain copyright on the work and provide the journal with the right of first publication of the work on condition of license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial. 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
  2. The authors retain the right to enter into certain contractual agreements relating to the non-exclusive distribution of the published version of the work (e.g. post it on the institutional repository, publication in the book), with the reference to its original publication in this journal.
  3. The authors have the right to post their work on the Internet (e.g. on the institutional store or personal website) prior to and during the review process, conducted by the journal, as this may lead to a productive discussion and a large number of references to this work. (See The Effect of Open Access.)

How to Cite

[1]
Titarenko, L.G. and Zaslavskaya, M.I. 2019. European integration of the systems of higher education of Belarus and Armenia. Journal of the Belarusian State University. Sociology. 1 (Jun. 2019), 102–112.