Postgraduate education in Russian universities: state, problems and prospects of development

The aim of the article is to analyse the current state and the prospects of the development of postgraduate education in Russian universities, to offer a system of scientific and methodological support of postgraduate students of the university and their research supervisors on the basis of this analysis and the accumulated experience. The main results of monitoring (sociological polls) of students focused on scientific and pedagogical activity, postgraduate students and experts from skilled research supervisors, heads of departments and deans of faculties of Russian universities are analysed. Mechanisms of implementation of changes in the functioning of postgraduate education in universities are offered. As a result of the research, it is revealed: a) the low efficiency of postgraduate education is connected, first of all, with the fact that many postgraduate students are guided by wrong representations and wrong motivation; b) many postgraduate students are not prepared (both methodologically and psychologically) to perform their tasks - to write and to defend their thesis; c) work with postgraduate students at departments of many universities is not conducted systemical-ly: research supervisors, department and the university do not pay them enough attention, which results in their inability to defend the thesis in time, to fulfil all necessary requirements, to answer the asked questions at the defence and in the Higher Attestation Commission, and often leads to students' abandoning postgraduate education or stopping to work on their thesis after the end of training; d) weak methodological support of postgraduate students. On the basis of the accumulated experience and conclusions of the research, tools for the solution of the revealed problems are proposed and tested. Experience of the development and use of scientific and methodological support of postgraduate students' work is presented. The scientific novelty of the research is that its results allowed to reveal and confirm the main problems of postgraduate education functioning in Russian universities, to offer and systematise mechanisms and tools for their decision. The practical value of the work is that the proposed mechanisms and tools of scientific and methodological support of postgraduate students of the university, relying on the experience approved at Penza State University of Architecture and Construction, can increase the efficiency of postgraduate education in Russian universities.

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