Isak Froumin: "Unified State Exam Is a Step in the Right Direction"
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In an interview with RIAC Program Director Ivan Timofeev and Senior Analyst at the Skoltech Space Center Jaroslaw Menshenin, Academic Supervisor of the HSE Institute of Education Isak Froumin, shares his insights on the importance of studying non-linear systems, the values of free action, as well as on which occupations are set to change and how.
In an interview with RIAC Program Director Ivan Timofeev and Senior Analyst at the Skoltech Space Center Jaroslaw Menshenin, Academic Supervisor of the HSE Institute of Education Isak Froumin, shares his insights on the importance of studying non-linear systems, the values of free action, as well as on which occupations are set to change and how.
Professor, “continuity in the main educational programs” of secondary and higher education is a main objective set out in the Federal State Educational Standards. How can we ensure reliability of knowledge, on the one hand, and “continuity” across all educational levels and in all regions, on the other?
I apologize if my answer sounds blunt, but your question implies a linear view of the world that excludes the role of chance and human initiative. Words like “continuity” are linear. And I believe that we need to discuss a nonlinear, and complex, environment. This is due to the fact that only a small number of people are involved in successive projects, while 50 per cent are not working in their specialty after three years. So there is no answer to your question in my picture of the world.
So, the question then arises as to how these standards are developed, since they are described using words such as “continuity”? Is international experience taken into account?
We do take international experience into account, although largely through the Soviet prism. Mikhail Kalinin used to say that education is the science of making a particular type of person out of any piece of material. This explains, among other things, why these standards focus on a linear alignment. However, I have nothing against linearity in a discipline; there should be a certain cultural pattern. For example, we shouldn’t study solid geometry before completing a course on plane geometry. But the situation is actually not as linear as the standards suggest.
Do you believe that schoolteachers should be given more freedom?
Learning to Study Is the Key
They should be given more freedom and should be held more accountable. The results, of course, will be different, since a free action is always more vigorous, more effective, and wiser than a non-free one. There are dozens of studies that substantiate this.
Isn’t there an inconsistency in suggesting more freedom and more accountability simultaneously? Teachers complain about the significant formal input and paper-work, such as the requirement that they fill a variety of reports and things like that.
I would put it somewhat differently – we should give teachers more freedom and explain clearly and intelligibly what they are responsible for. And we should keep the rules unchanged for a long enough period of time. In fact, there is nothing wrong with “accountability”, for that matter. Freedom, in my view, is related to effectiveness.
The Unified State Exam (USE) has been in place in Russia for more than ten years. Having first-hand knowledge of both school and university education, do you believe that the USE has proved its worth?
The USE has proved its worth one hundred percent. I am critical of many things related to Centralized Testing, but the previous situation with the final assessment and, moreover, the entrance exams, was simply unacceptable. There were price lists for university entrance. Test papers were copied on a massive scale. Of course, in terms of certain aspects, the USE is still rather primitive, but generally speaking, it is a step in the right direction.
You were a co-founder of the concept of open education in Russia. One of the projects involved providing liberal arts training to graduates of technical universities. Has this approach paid off?
Yes, it has. It is important to know how to move from one state of being to another. I believe that the development of the sixth sense, as described by our poet Nikolay Gumilev, is both useful and significant. Practice bears this out.
In the article “Incomplete Transition: From Gosplan to Master Plan,” co-written with Yaroslav Kuzminov and Dmitry Semyonov, you pointed out that only about half of first-year engineering students have an acceptable level of knowledge for the course. To solve this problem, it was proposed, among other things, to halve the budget for engineers and double the funding for training for each student. Have you heard of examples of experiments like this in any university? Can this approach be applied to other professions?
I have no doubt that this approach should be applied to other professions. All the students should be given a chance. I was told that Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics provides paid training to 14,000 distance-learning students on a “who will manage will manage” basis. And the university invests the revenue generated by these external students in 1,500 selected students, who study under the innovation in education programme. I believe that higher educational establishments should support the most creative and capable students. Of course, we can consider higher education a public good that should provide additional assistance to the weak. But this is a dead-end road.
There are a number of universities that offer programs for A-students. Similar programs exist in various countries, including the United States and Russia: 200 students are selected and the state pays them 100,000 [roubles] each. That comes to a total of 20 million [roubles]. Of this money, 15 million is spent on training 25 students, including individual work with them, their practical studies, etc with the remaining money spent on the other students.
In your opinion, what occupations will have the best job prospects in 10 or 20 years? Will they include occupations that today are hard to imagine? Will there also be changes in how work is organized?
Two of your questions are interesting. The first deals with those occupations that are likely to disappear. I have seen draftsmen disappear. The second involves considering which occupations will change and how. I share the opinion of my colleagues at the Harvard School of Education, who are looking at these changes, and they feel that nearly all specialties requiring routine work with data will be automated.
As to the new ways of organizing the workplace, I don’t think that people will work less. People will work more via the Internet. Take, for example, e-mail. It used to take 3-4 days to get an answer on paper; a couple of years ago the reply was expected the next day, while now you have exact time by which you have answer.
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