The university professor’s teaching load and other factors influencing the efficiency of his professional activity

The amount of the university professor’s teaching load is not only an economic indicator, which is required for calculation of the staff teachers’ rates, but an important factor that influences the efficiency of professors’ professional activity as well. The tendencies to increase the upper limits of the teaching load and the ratio “number of students per a teacher", which are taking shape in the Russian system of higher education, can be negative for the improvement of the research and educative work in the universities. The comparison of the analogical categories with a foreign experience demonstrates those variables that can provide creating the most favourable conditions for the professors’ efficient activity.