On the issue of final state certification in the postgraduate school of a new type

The article is devoted to the analysis of a new model of training and attestation of academic and pedagogical staff at postgraduate courses. The authors mention internal contradictions of this model and its conceptual incompleteness. Particular attention is given to content and organization aspect of postgraduate students final certification. On the basis of postgraduate courses normative base analysis as the third level of higher education in the context of the Russian educational practice and with consideration of comparative analysis of the norms formed in the European educational space the authors conclude that remaining institutional differences in the system of academic personnel training and degree distribution system hinder development and implementation of measures aimed at improving efficacy of postgraduate courses and upgrading its efficacy. The authors compare requirements of federal state educational standards for postgraduate courses and descriptors characterizing competencies of third level educational program graduates formulated within the framework of Bologna process. Authors demonstrate that qualification "Researcher. Lecturer researcher" given to those successfully mastered the postgraduate course creates additional gradation in the system of qualification levels of academic and teaching staff. Qualification group of specialists with postgraduate diplomas will stand between qualification groups of masters and candidates of sciences and it is extremely difficult to coordinate it with qualification levels adopted by most countries. The article formulates certain recommendations on improving existing system of highly qualified personnel including: 1) presenting the right of conferring academic degrees to higher educational institutions and educational centers offering postgraduate courses and; 2) changes in thesis defense procedure, attracting experts not affiliated with the university in charge of training and attestation of post graduate students for thesis evaluation; 3) preserving suggested form of final certification: graduation qualification paper, academic report on the main results of performed research as an alternative option for completing postgraduate course without conferring candidate degree. The results of research and suggested recommendations should be considered in continuing work on improving the development concept of national system of academic staff training and attestation as well as in planning concrete managerial solutions aimed at improving postgraduate courses efficacy.