Higher education in the Eurasian Economic Union: Potential and problems of cooperation

To solve the integration tasks of forming a common labor market, interpenetration of values and ideas, ensuring mutual understanding and trust between peoples, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) needs a single educational space, similar educational and professional standards, mutual recognition of diplomas, academic degrees and titles. The article considers academic mobility within the EAEU and current practices of cooperation between its member-states and observer countries in the field of higher education based on the data of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) and the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (to assess the efficiency of promoting the ideas of Eurasian integration) and on the results of the authors’ empirical research (to identify potential for the development of cooperation between the EAEU member-states and observer countries in the field of education). The authors show a decrease in student exchange between universities of member-states and an increase in the number of students from non-CIS countries; Russia still accepts more students than its EAEU partners, which proves the inequality of student and teachers’ academic mobility and the need for changes in legislation and funding under the growing competition with Turkey, Europe and China in the field of education. The article considers the development of the structure and programs of educational cooperation, the expansion of branches of leading universities in other countries, the creation by leading universities of the Consortium, Eurasian Network University and Slavic Universities, and so on. The development of cooperation between the EAEU member-states and observer countries in the field of higher education requires an agreement between participants of integration at the highest level, classification of the higher education issues as a separate area of cooperation, expansion of legal regulation of cooperation issues and creation of an institutional form for the EAEU management in the sphere of higher education.