Changes and rebuild of the education system

The Russian education system was originally inherited from the Soviet Union without any significant changes. In the Soviet Union, education of all levels was free for anybody who could pass entrance exams; students were provided with small scholarships and free housing. This was considered crucial because it provided access to higher education to all skilled students, as opposed to only those who could afford it. Free higher education is the main reason why more than 20% of Russians age 30–59 hold six-year degrees (this number is twice as high as that of the United States). The downside of that system was that institutions had to be funded entirely from the federal and regional budgets; therefore, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, expenses on education took a big blow; institutions found themselves unable to provide adequate teachers' salaries, students' scholarships, and to maintain their facilities. To address the issue, many state institutions started to open commercial positions. The number of those positions has been growing steadily since then. Many private higher education institutions have emerged, mostly in the fields where Soviet system was inadequate or was unable to provide enough specialists for post-Soviet realities, such as economics, business/management, and law. In 2004, of all first-year students, 35% were paying for their own education in state institutions and 20% were enrolled in private universities.

In the recent years there have been a lot of proposals for restructuring the Russian educational system in accordance with the U.S. educational system. Nevertheless, these proposals have not been approved due to strong scholar potential of Russian scientists.

Marks

Both at schools and universities, a 5-grade scale is used: "5" = excellent "4" = good "3" = satisfactory "2" = unsatisfactory / failing.

"5" is the best mark, "2" is the worst. Technically. a grade of "1" is the worst grade, but over time, it has been phased out and now is so rarely given that it is basically equivalent to not just a failing grade, but failing "with distinction". This system is not compulsory and in rare cases, for example, a 10-grade scale can be used.

"Plus" or "minus" signs can be added to a mark, e.g. "4+" means above good, "3-" means below satisfactory but not quite a failure or at least some part of the task was done and the teacher does not want to give him a bad mark. Or, for example, "4+" means that the work is quite good and very close to a "5", but not good enough to give a "5". "5+" is an excellent mark, given to distinguish a brilliant work.

However, these "+" and "-" are not official and are not written into the register (but most teachers keep their own unofficial register as well).

Unified State Exam

This type of examination was adopted recently. It is a test which is passed at the end of 9th and 11th form. It consists of three parts: part A contains tasks where the student has to pick out the correct answer out of several, in part B the correct answer should be written in one word, and no variants are given, and in Part C the student has to write the full solution (as in mathematics) or a composition (as in literature). The answers are written on special blanks, digitally scanned, with parts A and B being checked automatically by the computer software.

An excellent score ranges, depending on the subject, from 65 (mathematics) to 90 (foreign language) out of 100.

What's good for students of 11th form is that now they do not have to pass both their final school exams and entrance exams at a university. The score of several, usually three (e.g. to enter a Linguistics department, student has to pass Russian, English, and social science exams), subjects is summed up, this total score is the basis of accepting a student at a university. Students now also have a chance to apply at several universities and choose one after they get to know if their score is enough to enter this or that university.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 1179