Postgraduate studies in Russia: before and after the reform

The Ministry of Education and Science has prepared a plan for another reform of one of the most traditional forms of education in the post-Soviet space - postgraduate studies. How exactly are postgraduate studies supposed to be reformed and what are the expected results? There are many issues that require immediate solutions: why does the state “produce” so many Ph.D. graduates, when less than half of them will hardly ever work within their qualification; why does it take so long to obtain a Ph.D. degree; does the model of training meets modern needs. Amid competition, education systems in Russia and advanced countries need to establish a new model of postgraduate studies. Postgraduate education as a form of training highly qualified specialists originated in the Russian SFSR in 1925, spread to universities and research institutes of the USSR in the 1930s, when the country was building a new system of training academic and teaching staff. Graduate studies involved specialists with higher education who had worked within their profession for two years...