Manager on a Picket Line

Management is among the most popular specialties that adults can master within a relatively short time. Instruction is provided at the numerous business schools. Short training courses in basic management attract Russians because they are by and large affordable. Today an MBA degree, respected the world over, can be obtained in Russia for $3,000 to 55,000 after 18 to 24 months of training. In Europe, an MBA program will cost 10 times as much. Yet, in shelling out for education, aspiring MBAs in Russia do not always realize that they actually pay for an attractive and well-packaged refresher course.

In Europe with its excellent traditions of university-level economics education business schools occupy a special niche. They are open to people with practical experience. MBA schools abroad do not admit those who have no practical business experience.

In Russia, however, business management training has not been available for a long time, so business school students come from various professional backgrounds. Many of them have neither managerial experience nor connections in the business world. And acquiring experience and connections in 18 months of intensive study is no mean feat.

It is little wonder therefore that domestic employers sometimes prefer university graduates who have studied economics for five years at one of Russia's oldest higher education establishments, to business school students.

The situation is made worse by the fact that business schools in this country have no state accreditation. Their rights and duties are no different from those of a private dress-making course. These educational establishments live off the fees paid by their students and so are eager to teach anyone who has applied and passed exams.

Future managers are trained in the basics of their profession in the hope that they are grown-up enough to find a job for themselves. True, given general unemployment, even adults sometimes behave like children. A few years ago, a graduate of the Higher International Business Management School, exasperated by his failure to find a job, picketed his educational establishment.

Finally, the Education Ministry made an unorthodox decision — to issue a standard diploma to those who have completed an MBA program. This means that, all being well, several business schools offering MBA programs might receive state accreditation. Therefore their graduates will have an edge on the job market with their state approved diploma. nonetheless your correspondent was told at Mirbis school run by the Plekhanov Economics Academy that they still had a long way to go before those diplomas could get state recognition.

Teacher on the lip

Judging by sociological surveys, a considerable part of our citizens would prefer a modest but stable salary to a risky income. While some of our compatriots are taking retraining courses to become big enterprise managers, others are studying to become school teachers. According to nationwide statistics, 60 percent of teachers at our schools have a university (that is to say, nonpedagogical) education. Some of them study pedagogy after they have lost a job in their original specialty. Others take a teacher training course at their university while still undergraduates. (Krasnoyarsk University was the first to launch such a program for its students).

If we look at the Education Ministry's ratings of the most popular post-college education specialties, we will see that economics and economic management come first; general pedagogy, second; theory and methods of education (also pedagogy), third; and finances, money, and credit operations is in the fourth position.

Pedagogy is wedged between management and finances. Which must mean that adult Russians today, want to study in order to manage, count money, and teach others.

Task 1

Explain the following words and expressions from the text and give their Russian equivalents.

Advance training certificate Undergraduate State approved diploma Refresher courses Skill Sociological survey Option A special insert

Basics Risky income University degree Failure Affordable Job market Glamorous Background

Task 2

Match the synonyms from the two columns

For instance Select Occur Considerable Launch Sufficient Waste Available Roughly Shell out

Fairly large Enough Begin For example Pay Task Happen More or less Choose Use wrongly

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