What is the social efficiency of education in Russia?

Abstract

The article emphasizes the importance of assessing the social efficiency of education as an issue of sociology of education and a theoretical prerequisite for overcoming systemic bureaupathologies and ensuring scientific management of education in the interests of the Russian society. Social efficiency can be defined through the concept of mission (institutional functions) - as a ratio of socially significant results to public costs of education. The interpretation of the social efficiency of education as an object of social sciences presupposes: the central role of sociology in solving this scientific-practical problem; taking into account the entire spectrum, content and features of the institutional functions of education (impact on all spheres of society; delay of some results in time; irreducibility to a market service, pedocentric and “competence-based” schemes, etc.); interdisciplinary cooperation to conceptualize societal costs and outcomes. In the state education policy, the absence of the concept “social efficiency of education” in the Russian legislation creates an ideological and normative space for sectoral bureaucracy and systemic bureaupathologies, i.e., the social efficiency of education as a multi-component quality of macro-management is replaced by the primitive and profitable bureaucratic management. Such management ignores the social responsibility of education and divides it into short projects in which actions of bureaucrats correspond to neoliberal market “modernizations” and pedocentric “reforms”, contributing to the stagnation and crisis of the education system, the waste of public resources and the country’s lag in the global competition. The article considers the methodological features of the analysis of the identified problem’s components - public costs and social results - through the institutional functions of education and proposes a general logical scheme of such functions and expected results. The authors believe that the analysis of the social efficiency of education would ensure the development of this scientific-practical area in Russia, taking into account global scientific trends and the priorities of the Russian society, education and social-humanitarian knowledge.