WPD-logy as a tool of the improvement of education in the 21st century

The introduction to the article describes the situation that has developed in the system of higher education in Russia after Perestroika and has led to an unambiguous predominance of administration over professionally significant employees. The objective of the article is to arrange a detailed analysis of the reasons for the inversely proportional relationship between the level of creativity and the level of bureaucratization that is emerging in modern conditions. As an example, such an aspect of bureaucratic activity as the development and implementation of standards, represented, in particular, by the work programs of disciplines (WPD) and work programs of practices (WPP), is taken. The main research methodology is a comparative and comparative historical analysis, which allows to identify the features of the activities for the creation of WPD and WPP, which is considered necessary to improve the level of methodological work and the corresponding improvement in the quality of teaching. The result of the study allows us to show that the organization of methodological work is built hierarchically, with methodologists at the upper levels, and all teachers, including professors, at the lower levels. The work of the making of educational programs has turned, on the one hand, into a separate discipline, and, on the other hand, into a process, completely autonomous from educational and scientific activities. It is necessary not for educational activities, but exclusively for passing confirmations from authorities (attestations). In addition, rigid and constantly changing requirements for standards (including changes of the standards themselves) are reinforced by additional requirements for the quality of teaching staff, which are growing according to the awareness of the ineffectiveness of previous measures. This practice is considered in the context of the global trend of transformation of universities from “universities of culture” to the “universities of excellence” (in Bill Readings’ terminology). The authors of the article come to conclusion that as a result of the ongoing educational policy, a situation arises not just of imitation of education, but of imitation of imitation. The heyday of the WPD-logy is an important modern indicator that the real trajectory of development of most universities in modern Russia actually demonstrates a sign ificant decline of the level teaching.