How justified are ratings of higher education centers?

Russia will compose a national rating of its higher education centers in 2015, said Victor Sadovnichy, the rector of Moscow State University and the president of the Russian Union of Rectors. Two months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed the formation of an annual rating of national higher education centers.

Sadovnichy agrees that the rating would give an unbiased image of higher education centers and attract foreign students. He warns, however: "All those ratings are an attempt to recreate some criteria into a set of figures. The figures can be used to judge success and the place of the university on the world scale, in world space. By the way, the recent world assembly of mathematicians declared the incorrectness of affection for calculations because, in terms of science, such calculations are always incorrect. In other words, they can be made, calculated, in such a way that the results would be contrary. In mathematical terms, it is called an ill-conditioned problem, when you have no clear solution. Ratings are certainly important, they show the success of a university, though with many conditions."

The rector is talking about a world-recognized rating. "Many countries have done it, for example the PRC, when it saw that hundreds of thousands of Chinese want to choose a university in the world, they decided to show a picture and organized the Shanghai Rating. Initially, it pursued a goal to orient young people in the PRC towards choosing studies at a university. But it turned out that American universities topped the list because the main criteria there was Nobel Prizes Fields medals in mathematics. So, naturally, American universities take the top spots in the Shanghai Rating. It was probably important for China to form a rating," Sadovnichy explains.

MSU is always among the top 100 universities on the Shanghai Rating, Moscow State University was ranked 24 in mathematics.

A few years ago, Saudi Arabia organized an international rating. "It is a very good rating. It reflects the face of a university more fully, and it focuses on the quality of education. Certain significant means were put into it. It is being developed, and Moscow University has been among the top 100 universities in the rating since its creation. In 2014, it was ranked 48 in the world, ranked 14 in the world in terms of the quality of education," says Sadovnichy.

In his opinion, a wider and more actual university needs to be created to reflect the qualities and functions of an education center in the world. Sadovnichy wants the rating to include opinions of employers and prospective students. "The most important thing is the stem that would reflect the mentality of the state, the country, the people. A university teaches young people, makes them citizens. it is the country's pride. The most important goal is its promotion and recognition in the world. It takes efforts, including financial [efforts]," the rector concluded.