Education in Russia

The education system in Russia includes the schools and colleges of the country. It is divided into four sections, the general education, vocational training, higher education and post-graduate education

Train

The General education is divided into sections primary, secondary and high school.

The school entry done at the age of seven years. The early school entry age of six is recommended on average about 35 % of the children after a psychological assessment. The four-year primary level of basic or beginning graduate school who start school at age seven children within three years. You get that way from the third immediately in the fifth year.

This is followed by a compulsory six-year primary school level. It leads to the acquisition of " basic education" - usually at the end of ninth grade and after reaching the compulsory age of 15 years. This deal entitles you to attend the upper secondary level ( two- year), their conclusion by the " certificate of complete secondary education " ( the traditional so-called " school leaving certificate " ) - to German: Abitur, a study recording enabled.

After nine years of compulsory schooling can be made instead of the high-school level and vocational education at the middle school ( vocational school) or the pilot. These facilities continue to be for the acquisition of complete secondary education are available ( dual training program) in the vertically permeable entire professional education. Because are additionally informed about the occupation-specific subjects and the general subjects, but the content is based on the professional orientation.

Universities

History

From 1920 to 1950

In the 20 years of education was decentralized in accordance with the federalist structure of the USSR. It created a small, narrowly specialized technical university units that were linked to individual economic sectors or large enterprises. In this manner was secured that the companies always enough workers are available ( cf. Kuebart 2002, p 94). The responsibilities for education were ( cf. Kuebart 2002, p 9) in the People's Commissariat of Education republics. In the 30s there was a reorganization and it was founded a state body specifically responsible for higher education. While the competencies for the specialized technical colleges were at the branch administrations, universities fell within the competence of university departments. Due to lack of manpower and adequate qualification of the system in 1940 introduced the "State labor reserves ", creating a centrally steered vocational education system was created. The responsibilities for education were at the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, took over the planning of the training quotas, the organization and recruitment of students and the distribution of the Graduates of the holdings. Especially after the end of the war there was a forced recruitment of students to achieve the planned objectives of the reconstruction (see Kuebart 2002, pp. 10f).

From 1950 to 1980

After Stalin's death in 1953, the education was provided to the Ministry of Culture. After a year, however, this decision was reversed and while the higher education was made ​​a Union Ministry, the head office of the labor reserves fell into the jurisdiction of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. In 1958, seeking to impose certain reforms. The system of labor reserves was abolished and replaced by vocational- technical schools. Within the regional decentralization, the economic management skills were transferred from the central ministries to the Councils of Ministers of Union Republics. This was a strong limitation of the powers of the State Committee for vocational- technical education. After Khrushchev's overthrow of the economic apparatus was reorganized, which also brought certain changes in education with it. 1965 disappeared the regional national economy councils and the State Committee for vocational- technical education was re- parked the Council of Ministers of the USSR. The responsibilities of this committee, however, were further graded. In the 70s it was attempted again, the competencies in vocational training to focus the State Committee and thereby introduce a unified state professional politics. This attempt failed, however, because the leading economic officials and scientists decentralized, company training supported (see Kuebart 2002, pp. 13-20 ).

1980s

Significant changes in the education system were made in 1984, when a new reform plan for general education schools and vocational schools was created. In the next step, a draft directive for change in higher and technical education was presented in 1986. The reform was necessary for three reasons

In the 1960s and 1970s there was a rapid expansion of higher education and thus the social demand for university graduates was saturated in the late 1970s. However, the demand for college graduates was subject to regional and sectoral imbalances. While in some sectors there was an oversupply of skilled labor, lacked industries such as electronics and robotics engineers. Around 1980 "freeze" the number of graduates at the level of the years, braking measures have been introduced in the university admissions policy. While the rise in number of graduates could be brought to a halt, the sectoral imbalances could not be eliminated. One reason was the wage policy, some of which lower-rated work of the engineer than that of a skilled worker (see Kuebart 2002, pp. 26ff ).

Another problem was the quality of training and the professional competence of graduates dar. In the 70s originated from local prestige point of view and by the strengthening of existing institutions, a variety of new universities, but had no funds for quality education. Some such universities had not a single professor. This had not only to the efficiency of universities negative consequences, but also for the research activities. Therefore, the modernization of training to a core point of the reform plan. With the introduction of perestroika in the late 1980s, new guiding principles and emphases were placed in the education system. A Key to the reform plans was the integration of higher education, industry and science. As part of this collaboration, the universities should the companies " deliver " with the required number of graduates with specific skills profiles, while the companies financial and material resources should provide colleges. Even raising the quality level was again set to the target. To achieve this goal, the universities were given greater scope for freedom for the instructional design and introduced an external evaluation ( " attestation "). The training and re-qualification gained in importance and thus are alternative forms of education such as the " Open University " emerged.

Since the 1990s,

The transformation of the economic system from a planned economy to a market economy and the failures of previous educational reforms led to a critique of the rigidity of the state education monopoly and the public demand for educational alternatives. Today, there is already a variety of different non-governmental education. This plurality can be attributed to two reasons

The general education secondary school was designed as a mass school during the Soviet era, ie they did not meet the increased quality requirements of the 90s. Because of this, more and more widespread the practice of private tuition classes in preparation for college in the affluent social classes.

Second, also formed an educational reform movement that sought to reform the education system from below. The aim of this exercise was to make school life and teaching of innovative.

As a result, created a number of private schools that took into account the individual needs of pupils and students, offering choices in education and a demand -oriented education market managed. An essential step in promoting the privatization of education was the decree of Boris Yeltsin in 1991, which expressly assured the non-governmental educational institutions for the first time state support. This marked the formal end of the state education monopoly on the Soviet pattern. The plan of the total privatization of education was, however, rejected by society, because on the one hand an enrichment campaign, on the other hand, the loss of opportunity was feared to free education. Therefore, the Duma in 1995 a three-year moratorium on any privatization of state educational institutions decided. With the elimination of bureaucratic power structures of the Soviet era, decentralization plays an important role. In education, regionalization was funded by three developments:

• I. shift of political and administrative skills down.
• II transformation of the economic structure from planned economy to market economy, and thus reducing the importance of training professionals and increased focus on the needs of the regional labor markets.
• III. Crisis of state funding of education, which required the use of other financing structures.

However, the regionalization brought obtaining economies of scale. The horizontal integration of smaller colleges of different profiles and specializations were combined into a comprehensive university, universities formed at larger university locations with focus profile and so far incorporated into an existing independent colleges university, to thereby complete the offer of this university. There was also a vertical integration, whereby universities tried to bind organizational educational institutions at other levels in to thereby secure their own position. In order to fulfill the desire of students to study in the vicinity of the place of residence, even branches were founded by the universities.

In the early 1990s there was a status-based differentiation in the non -university sector, which led to structural changes. Many universities ( in Russia called the " Institute" ) managed to gain the status of a university or an academy ( as a new type of university, such as Plekhanov Academy of Economics Moscow). In this way, these universities could improve their competitiveness in the newly created education market and strengthen its international contacts. Furthermore, they were given the opportunity to offer postgraduate degree programs. There are basically three types of higher education institutions in Russia: universities, academies and institutes. Universities and academies " lead the training, retraining and up-skilling of persons with a qualification through at the highest level, operate not only applied research but also basic research, have a postgraduate and (or) a doctoral studies and are leading scientific and methodological centers on their respective areas of expertise. ". The difference between the University and the Academy is that the university a much wider area than a training academy, which focuses on a specific area. The activity of an institution is also limited, but it does not have " a leading center in his field have to train people with a qualification to the highest level, to have a postgraduate and doctoral studies and perform in any case basic research". The main objectives of the educational reform of the 90s were the democratization, abandonment of the ideology, denationalization, diversification, decentralization, autonomy, humanization and individualization of education. The democratization of education should be achieved through the abolition of the unit character of socialist education and by the orientation of education to the individual requirements of the student. The pluralization of education had the goal to promote the private education sector. In addition, the educational institutions were given the opportunity to set their own thematic priorities and to develop specific profiles through the autonomy of leeway. However, the implementation of the decentralization led to a shift of financial responsibility on local authorities and educational institution level. Because of the difficulties of state education funding the educational institutions were forced to seek to generate additional revenue. This was done primarily through the leasing of the premises to private companies, sales of manufactured products in the workshops and the introduction of tuition fees. More and more common practice to offer more student places in addition to the state-funded study places, the charges had to be, however, borne by the students themselves. Today up to 40 % of places to self-pay will be awarded. This led to increased competition between universities. In this regard, the Russian universities are increasingly trying to position itself as a brand in the education market, thereby increasing the number of students and the amount of ingested tuition fees.

This development of the Russian higher education system in line with international trends, where the universities have the characteristics of a service company.