Russia Education Profile 2012

Russia Education Sector

Russia inherited from the Soviet Union an educational system with comparatively high standards, able to compete on a world scale in some segments. Under post-Soviet conditions, however, the country has been unable to put this educational potential to good economic use. Rather, Russia has faced mass emigration of top personnel. Funding shortages greatly reduced the quality of the state educational system. The private educational sector has not developed far enough to make up this deficiency. Research and development is still up to world standards in some areas, for example in space technology, but in general Russia is below the level of OECD countries in quantitative as well as qualitative terms.

The Russian government reacted to this by declaring education a top priority as one of the four national projects which receive considerable additional funding. The government has also designed programs to improve research and development as well as academic tuition. Russia has joined the Bologna process which aims to create a common European academic education system. Government spending on education is now slightly below 5% of GDP and spending on research and development stands at slightly below 2%.