Аннотация:Journalism education in the Russian Federation operates in the same legislation frames as other fields of education. To open a new training program in journalism every educational institution – classical university or applied sciences institution, state or private, providing undergraduate, graduate or postgraduate programs – undergoes the licensing procedure followed by the state accreditation that is approved every six years and allows to issue diploma certificates and grant qualification degrees.
The state accreditation is authorized by the Federal Service for Supervision in Education (Rosobrnadzor) and is based on the decision of certified experts. Although accreditation is provided by a governmental body, the criteria used by experts are set by a peer think-tank organization, the Council for Journalism Education, which unites leading academicians in journalism education and research as well as representatives of the media industry. This body designs and updates the Federal State Educational Standard along with a basic model educational program in journalism that serves as template and model curricula when making a decision about the quality of journalism education in an accredited institution. This state-and-peer alliance, which is a traditional approach of the national political culture, has been working smoothly for years and seems to be an adequate format for accreditation in the Russian Federation where the state through its institutions and agencies plays a leading role in the education system and guarantees free access to its various levels and controls its quality.
However, critical remarks can be heard regularly from academicians, educational executives, and industrial lobby demanding to revise the established system of accreditation. Their main concerns are focused on developing new evaluation procedures for the quality control of education, which should be more transparent and independent as well as conducted by experts with experience and reputational background.
Besides state accreditation there are public and public-and-industrial accreditations – other controlling bodies set by the Law on Education. They both are optional for implementation and can be carried out on a voluntary basis by accreditation centers, although results can be taken in account during the state accreditation. Until now there is no clear system of public or public-and-industrial accreditation for journalism education, although there is a possibility for such kind of independent control in the future.