OREANDA-NEWS. October 08, 2012. The 9th Arbitration Appeal Court in Moscow supported the position of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) and upheld the FAS decision and determination issued upon the fact of the Federal Service for Supervision over Education violating Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” , reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

Earlier FAS found that Rosobrnadzor violated Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”. Until 1st January 2011, Rosobrnadzor was issuing State Accreditation Certificates to higher professional educational institutions, annexes to which did not list the programmes of additional professional education. Instead of a list of additional professional education programmes, as required by the law on education, annexes to the certificates of state registration specified “Professional Retraining and Advancing Qualification of Top Executives and Specialists According to the Main Educational Programmes of a University”.

Given the above record in an annex to an accreditation certificate, the state accreditation automatically covered all programmes that a university devises and offers in the period of the state accreditation granted to an educational (research) organization. It contradicts the law on education.

From 1st January 2011, there is no state accreditation of universities. At the same time, since 2007 the law on education has not required accrediting educational programmes for additional professional education, for which no federal state standards are established.

Since a state-recognized document typically is of prevailing importance for consumers of educational services, universities accredited for indefinite, unenumerated range of additional professional education programmes have unlawful competitive advantages over institutions of additional professional education.

“The Court ruling is extremely important for developing fair competition on the market of educational services because it eliminates discrimination of private educational institutions training students under the programmes of additional professional education”, pointed out the Head of FAS Department for Control over Social Sphere and Commerce, Timophei Nizhegorodtsev.