Russia

Abstract

Russia is one the most populous nations of the world, and one of the most educated. Nearly 55% of Russians have completed some form of tertiary education, a figure that approaches and even exceeds respective indicators of many developed nations (Poletaev, Agranovich, & Zharova, 2002). The success of Russian higher education is, to a large extent, a product of Soviet educational policy, but a number of achievements have been lost since then. Reforms that began in the mid-1980s, and continued after the demise of the Soviet Union, have constantly tested the national education system, which proved to be both one of the most vulnerable and one of the most inertial social institutions. This chapter presents an overview of the Russian higher education system, providing some historical background and exploring current issues, challenges and perspectives regarding educational financing, recent and ongoing reform agendas, student and faculty bodies, graduate education, private education, and internationalization. The discussion offers a mostly internal view of higher education, focused on issues of the most serious concern to members of the Russian educational community, but considers some of them from a comparative perspective as well.