Education in Russia to stay Free and not become “Pay For” Higher Education

The education in Russia will remain free, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers Wednesday.

He said that the draft law to that effect had been generally approved.

The Russian government had been given one more week to improve the document before submitting it to the State Duma, lower house of parliament.

Medvedev stressed that the draft law is the most important of those which had been worked out by the government in recent years.

The law “On Education in the Russian Federation” is to replace two laws “On education” and “On higher and postgraduate education”, which were adopted in 1992 and 1996 respectively.

The draft law has been developed since 2009. Lawmakers took into consideration proposals and remarks made by Russian citizens. RIA, TASS

This is a big issue in Russia and for awhile it looked as if Sveta’s son would be the last of free education! In Russia you can go all the way to a doctors degree and it does not cost you a penny. Sveta’s son has gone to a very wonderful University and is working on his doctorate as I write this! It has not cost him a penny to go to school and he is a “Straight E Student” as we in the old days would say. He graduated recently in the first stage of his advanced degree and he got a red diploma and in Russia that is the best that you can do…

In Russia the honor system is based on the grade point averages. At least 4.75 out of 5.0 points required for the cum laude degree (“с отличием” (“s otlichiem”) in Russian or “red diploma”). The graduate has to receive a perfect grade on all final examinations. Usually less than 2% of all graduated students are able to accomplish this (depending on the university and year). In military schools, a “red diploma” may be accompanied by a gold medal (“summa cum laude”) for outstanding performance. Russian high schools also award a Gold Medal to the student who achieves a perfect score in all final examinations and in all other subjects not requiring a final exam. A Silver medal is awarded to high school students who have one or two grades of 4 (“хорошо” in Russian or “good”, being second highest grade) on their final exams or other subjects as listed in the high school diploma (“attestat o (polnom)srednem obrazovanii”).

I have to say that Russian have a fantastic opportunity to get a free education and many take full advantage of it. Most Russians that I deal with are very well educated and have a masters degree at the very least. A bachelors degree is considered worthless and futile, so most of the time I am talking to PHD people as I travel Russia by train all the time. Big difference in this area between Russia and America in education…

I am glad that Medvedev changed his stance on this issue and it looks like they listened to the people of Russia over this issue…

Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…