Travel Russia

Education in Russia

Russia inherited a well-developed, comprehensive system of education from the Soviet period, and most adults in Russia are literate. Soviet authorities established an extensive network of preschool, elementary, secondary, and higher-education institutions. It also provided free continuing education for adults. At the age of six, children in the USSR entered primary school for an intensive course from grades one to four. Intermediate education began with grade five and continued through grade nine. After that, children entered upper-level schools or vocational-technical programs, which included on-the-job training. In the early 1990s enrollment in primary schools was 11.9 million students, and 9.4 million students attended secondary schools.

The collapse of the Soviet system brought many changes to Russian education. By 1992 some 300 private schools had opened, including 40 institutions of higher education. Extensive changes were made to the curriculum, including the teaching of previously banned literary works, a reinterpretation of Soviet and Russian history, and an end to the study of politically inspired subjects.

Nurseries, kindergartens, and other early education facilities are particularly well attended in Russia. In the early 1990s 64 percent of the children of preschool age attended a preschool facility-one of the highest proportions among the former Soviet republics.

Russia's system of specialized secondary education is also well developed. In the early 1990s Russia had 2603 such institutions. Enrollment was about 2.3 million. Specialized secondary schools train skilled and semiprofessional workers such as technicians, nurses, elementary-school teachers, and other specialists who generally function as assistants to professional graduates of higher educational institutions. The specialized secondary school program lasts up to four years, and graduates receive the equivalent of a general secondary education as well as specialized technical training. Vocational-technical schools offer one- to three-year programs of training in semiskilled and skilled occupations. In these schools a student might complete a general secondary education while obtaining occupational training.
In the early 1990s Russia had 519 institutions of higher education with 2,763,000 students, or approximately 11 percent of the total population over the age of 15. Universities comprise only a small proportion of the higher educational establishments; the vast majority are institutes that specialize in vocational training. A large percentage of students take correspondence courses or attend classes on a part-time basis. Traditionally, tuition was free, with students receiving a monthly stipend, but some universities began to charge students for tuition in the early 1990s. The country's most prominent universities include Moscow State University (founded in 1755), Saint Petersburg State University (1819), Kazan' State University (1804), and Novosibirsk State University (1959). Other important universities are located in Rostov-na-Donu, Nizhniy Novgorod, Tomsk, Vladivostok, and Voronezh. In addition to universities and institutes, the Russian Academy of Sciences (1725), one of the world's foremost organizations devoted to scholarly research, is in Russia.

Undergraduate training in higher educational institutions generally involves a four- or five-year course of study, after which students might enroll for graduate training for a one- to three-year term. Graduate students who successfully complete their courses of study, comprehensive examinations, and the defense of their dissertations receive candidate of sciences degrees, which are roughly equivalent to doctoral degrees in the United States. A higher degree, the doctor of sciences, is awarded to established scholars who have made outstanding contributions to their disciplines.