Being the world’s most literate country, Russia has still expanded the effort to get recognized internationally in the world education markets. Russia education market is very promising to the economic growth. As the system education is already well designed, along with the cheap cost living, studying in Russia is a worth it, both for local or international students. Below I will give the unknown facts about education market in Russia;
1. Russian government are trying hard to get higher university global ranking
Russia’s internationalization efforts mean the government efforts to get the world’s acknowledgement on its education system. Over the past year, they have tried really hard to expand and to attract more foreign students to study in Russia. Although the outcome is still growing slowly, the future seems so promising since the hard work will come out with great results.
The Russia government really gets ambitious and is focused on improving the quality and the international promotion. One of the efforts they had made was in 2012, they had announced the 5-100 initiative to place five Russian universities among the world’s top 100 by 2020. This project was launched to enhance the competitiveness and prestige of Russian institutions in global research and education. The internationalization of research, as well as faculty and the student population are central to this plan.
2. Government take action to send the students abroad as one of its education market strategy
The government has active way of introducing their scholar abroad, this is more effective way than just catch the ball –wait for international students to come. In this case they have actively do the students exchange programs, or it can be said that by sending the native Russian students abroad then study their undergraduate program in the assigned universities abroad. As the outcome, the government would bring them back to home country and they would apply what they studied as one of the nation effort in enrich the education system also to modernize the home based university.
3. Attract for international students around the world
After doing promotion actively and improving the education system, it is believed that the education market targeted to the international students will become success. The target actually is for the tertiary level students. In this case is a college student from abroad. Actually it has been better since the Soviet times, times when education market is terrible due to the Marxist economic ideology. And many experts still have big hopes of the better education market in Russia for the upcoming years.
4. Consumer expense on education is rising
Consumer in education market is the party who relates with the children or puppies, parents, and wider community who is relevant. In this case, it is very important factors on education market since education especially university levels requires much more money. To be exact, social and financial status of the family influence the access to get higher education. While it is difficult to pass university entrance examination, the parents with better financial income can afford to hire tutors to get better preparation. And so with the university tuition, they can easily pay for it.
The data from Russia government state that the total consumer spending on education in total is amount US$7.3 billion. And still expected to rise in the upcoming year of 2021 by amount US$10.03 billion. Russia also indicates that a high proportion (23.1%) of family income is spent on tertiary-level education but only three percent on primary, secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary. In the case of primary and secondary levels, the government has free tuition provided for the pupils without discrimination. The only matter is education after those levels.
5. Famous tertiary institution in Russia
Russia has numerous universities which are located in all around their territories. Most of them are focused and located in large cities, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg. Actually, tertiary education definition is the college levels degree and higher. There were a total of 896 acknowledged tertiary education institutions in Russia. Public institutions are categorized into: big multi-disciplinary universities, academies specialized in particular professions, such as medicine, education, architecture or agriculture, and the last is institutes that offer programs in single disciplines only, such as music or arts.
As for famous university, there are three National Universities, Moscow State University, which was founded in 1755 and has about 48,000 students and 8,000 teachers. This university is absolutely be has the title of Russia’s most prestigious institution with the highest reputation. Second place is the Russian People’s Friendship University in Moscow has about 6,500 students and 1,500 teachers, and the third position is St. Petersburg State University which has about 21,000 students and 2,100 teachers. Those three State University have special legal status and are funded by the federal government directly, in which the rectors are appointed by the government.
6. Growing popularity of Russia as a study destination
Russia has many reasons to be the destination country for higher education. Besides having rich in culture, cheap expense and life cost, international students might find it interesting to study in Russia. Compare with other western European country, Russia offers cheaper expense and great culture. Based on the data from UNESCO in 2015, around 226.400 international students were studying in the country. This shows great improvement than the previous years. The students mainly are from Commonwealth of Independence States (CIS) countries such as Belarus, Armenia and Kazakhstan. Those countries used the Russian language and the popularity of Russian higher education is strong.
7. Private Schools as the rising education market in Russia
Private schools and preschools became centers of innovation, this is because of the best teaching methods which are adapted from Western Europe and United States. Although the tuition is more expensive than state schools, the parent from wealthy family is fine with it. Besides tuition, all private schools must pay for rent, utilities, and textbooks, and many have struggled to retain adequate building space.