Russian Federation

Overview of Education System

According to the federal law On Education in the Russian Federation, passed in 2012, the government guarantees citizens free general and free vocational education on a competitive basis at state and municipal educational institutions.

According to this law, federal authorities are responsible for the development and implementation of unified educational policy, regional authorities are responsible for the development and implementation of regional programs, and local authorities are responsible for the organization of education at different levels according to federal education standards. Federal education authorities create federal policy, oversee its implementation, and develop the legislative basis for the functioning of the education system. Furthermore, federal authorities establish federal and state educational standards and develop model curricula and model programs of study for school subjects on the basis of these standards. Federal authorities also oversee expert review of textbooks and supplementary literature for schools.^a

The public system of education comprises general education at the preprimary, primary, basic, and upper secondary levels, and vocational education at the secondary, higher, and postgraduate levels. General education (Grades 1 to 11) is compulsory according to the Constitution.

Preprimary education is for children ages 3 to 6 and is not compulsory. In 2016, 49,400 preprimary institutions served 7.34 million children.³ Because of the significant increase of the birth rate in recent years and the lack of municipal kindergartens necessary for all children, new types of institutions have been established, including family kindergartens.

Primary general education comprises Grades 1 to 4 and may be provided in primary schools, in basic schools that include the primary stage, and in secondary education institutions that include all three stages. Basic general education or lower secondary education comprises Grades 5 to 9, while secondary general or upper secondary education consists of Grades 10 and 11. Because general education is compulsory, students who finish basic school and wish to attend vocational school will study general education subjects (equivalent to Grades 10 and 11, but at a basic level) as well as vocational education subjects and skills.

Approximately 98 percent of all primary, basic, and secondary schools in Russia are state-municipal, meaning the municipal budget is the schools’ main source of financing and that many decisions are made at the regional level. In the school year 2015–2016 there were 42,600 state-municipal schools with 14,666 students.^4,5 This reflected a decrease in the number of educational organizations reported in 2011, due to the tendency to combine several schools into one larger school. In 2015, nonstate general education institutions comprised 800 schools and catered to only 0.72 percent of students.⁶

In the last decade, the main innovations in general education included the following:

• Federal State Educational Standards were introduced in 2011 for primary schools and in 2015 for basic schools, emphasizing requirements that pertain to curriculum structure; student achievement in personal, metacognitive, and academic subject domains; and conditions for curriculum implementation. The requirements that pertain to student achievement can be considered competence based.
• A national system of independent national examinations was created in 2009, known as the Unified State Examination.
• An independent system for evaluating the quality of education was introduced, aiming to facilitate independent school assessment by allowing any independent organization (i.e., public organizations, parents, schools, educational authorities, etc.) to initiate the evaluation process. The Ministry of Education and Science developed recommendations for conducting independent evaluations and using the results.

In accordance with the new law on education, two main documents were developed to regulate general education at all stages (preprimary, primary, basic, and secondary): the Federal State Educational Standards and the Model Basic Educational Program. They include three types of requirements:^b

• The structure of main curricula and programs
• Requirements for the conditions of program realization
• Requirements for achievement results

The idea of inclusive education is actively being developed in the Russian Federation. Typically, students with special needs were educated at specialized schools. Many parents prefer to send children with special needs to regular public schools. This tendency requires intensive retraining of teachers of primary schools.