Abstract:

In Europe and Russia the certain experience of accreditation in education is accumulated, the agencies, their unions and associations which are the guarantor of quality assurance are created. The problem of a research is the determination of the main directions of the international activities of the accreditation agencies in the countries participating in Bologna Process. The objects of a research are actions for implementation of the international activities of the accreditation agencies of Russia and Germany.

The methodology of a research is in that:
1) on the basis of the analysis of the list of the events of different level held by "Russian Accreditation Agency" and the German agency "Accreditation, Certification and Quality Assurance Institute/ACQUIN" and provided on their websites to mark out actions of the international level;
2) to classify and compare these actions for criterion of their orientation;
3) to show a high-quality originality of the international activities of data of the agencies in the context of the state and international recognition of quality of educational activities.

Research methods:
Analysis of references, content analysis, comparison, interpretation, generalization. The analysis of history of creation of the accreditation agencies has shown that creation in Russia in 1995 of Scientific information center of the state accreditation in the city of Yoshkar-Ola reflected world practice of activity of the specialized organizations for accreditation in education. Representatives of Russian Accreditation Agency participated in many scientific conferences and seminars abroad. Special attention is paid to accreditation of educational programs of foreign subsidiaries of the Russian higher education institutions and educational activities of diplomatic representations and consular establishments in the sphere of school education. The international activity of ACQUIN has been also directed to the accession to labor unions, networks and associations. The comparative analysis of materials showed that general tendencies in the international activities of the accreditation agencies of Russia and Germany are observed. Distinctions are that Russian Accreditation Agency doesn't participate in accreditation of educational programs of foreign higher education institutions. At the same time the Asian countries of the former USSR (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan) having a large number of agreements on cooperation in the sphere of science and education with Russia don't consider for themselves prestigious to obtain the Russian accreditation as international for the purpose of integration in educational space of the Union of the Independent States (UIS) and address to the German accreditation agency. The leading Russian higher education institutions are also oriented to receipt of the international accreditation in the European agencies. They hope to attract foreign students, to increase export of educational services and to promote increase in competitiveness of Russia and its citizens in the world labor market.

Keywords:

Education, the higher education, internationalization, Bologna Process, accreditation, international accreditation, accreditation agency.