I've just read this blog entry about crisis in British higher education, created by lowering of standards and payments and introduction of modularity and lecturers audits.
The author of this article works in area of Computer Science, but the tendency seems to be universal both in UK and US. (You can look, for example, through this post)
So why we in Russia should be interested in problems of far richer countries?
Our educational system is in decline because of enormous and long-lasting lack of money. But modern reformation efforts introduce new dangers.
Today we are accepting participation in so called "Bologna process", which will inject to our education some problems of British system, mentioned in the first article. The most obvious one is modularity, which allows students to choose courses to learn. It leads to lack of interest in harder core courses, and I can feel it myself. Today I have passed in two of four courses which were given in our department (of QFT), and I have no need to pass the tests on other two, which are far harder.
Nevertheless, "Bologna process" is a minor threat comparing with government educational policy.
By the way, our problems will inflict western education too, since it is supported by immigration from our country.
The only hope is academic emigration from China and other developing countries.
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