Some things have really changed since I left school in 1999. For example, a United State Exam is being widely introduced instead of a set of exams (including mathematics, the Russian language and literature and some up to pupil’s choice); pupils write USE at the end of high school and its results are accepted in many Russian Universities. Some accept this innovation positively, others claim that this test cannot show a child’s knowledge and abilities adequately. This is disputable point which can be used by politicians to win youngsters over to their side. In general, Russian politicians are aware of the fact that education and the future of the younger generation will be a key factor in the country's next elections - both parliamentary and presidential. For instance, it will be the first time that many young people, those born the late '80s, will have their chance to pass judgement on the current political regime. It is they and their parents who have suffered most because of the worsening conditions within schools, universities and colleges due to lack of funds for equipment, general education supplies, building maintenance and teachers' pay. These parents and children have witnessed severe deterioration of the Soviet education system that was admired around the world. It was free for everyone, provided the best conditions for both students and teachers and instilled a universal incentive for high academic achievement.

Even including the remote, relatively primitive regions of the former Soviet Union, it was among the top countries in the world for adult literacy. Until 1996 the number of schools in Russia continued to grow. Thereafter schools started closing, mainly due to a demographical downturn and also because many were in underpopulated areas. The number of students has also shrunk. Most schools are still state-run. Only some 50,000 students go to private schools. However, economic decline has meant that the cash-strapped government has been finding it harder and harder to sustain what was once a vibrant education sector. It is widely accepted that Russia needs to find its own ways to develop the national education system.

The promotion of distant education is seen by some as an answer to challenges posed by the country's dispersed population and poor road network. Distant education, based upon new information technologies, offers an opportunity to reach the unreached. Some 46,000 of the total 66,689 schools in Russia are in the rural and remote areas, where the average number of students is a mere 150. But what would one understand under “new information technologies”? Internet, I guess. Which is hard to pay for residents in rural and remote areas... Studies and surveys have identified the importance of what is called “parental involvement” in education, although what that phrase means is purposely obscured; many education leaders who call for increased parental involvement object to involving parents in the most critical educational decision of all--which schools children will attend. It is evident that phrases and slogans have replaced sound analysis and specific, meaningful reform proposals.

Russia's economic woes have also caused social problems among the youth. Some 70 percent of secondary school students are smokers, 30 percent are regular drinkers, while there are also some 100,000 drug addicts among them. Russia's education system today is at the sharp end of the worst elements of market economy supply-and-demand conditions. It has become a system where a good education and even fair assessment is mainly reserved for the wealthy. Even choosing a line of study, however bright a student might be, is governed by the amount of cash a family has available to pay the high prices set for study within prestigious institutes, especially those providing skills to match the new Russian economy. The debate over the reform of public education in Russia has largely become an exchange of cliches searching for practical meaning.

Despite this, the number of candidates for higher education is increasing (a ten to fifteen per cent increase in higher education entrance exam takers, for example). Young people and their parents believe that higher education leads to full self-realisation and guarantees success in obtaining a prestigious and well paid occupation. In regions the competition to enter higher education institutions is currently fiercer than in Moscow: not everyone can afford travelling to Moscow and life in the capital is much more expensive and less secure than in the provinces. Furthermore regional higher education institutions located are now more oriented towards local needs and, it is easier for their graduates to find job. But higher education should not only promote professional growth, but also raise individual consciousness. This latter feature should be free from momentary pragmatic needs of any kind – political and economic including, which unfortunately is hard to achieve in the present-day system.

The structural reorganisation of higher education should correspond to new labour market requirements: there are many specialists in market economy, law, social studies and the humanities. The number of specialists trained for specific industrial sector needs (especially engineers) has simultaneously decreased. However, the training of specialists in high technologies at the forefront of scientific and technological progress is of great concern. New scientific programmes should specifically target for development: programs concerning computers in higher and postgraduate education, developing fundamental scientific research, innovative programmes in higher education institutions, developing and preserving the intellectual property of higher education institutions, dealing with problems in creating and implementing state education policy, converting scientific and technological potential of higher education, creating and developing nation-wide higher education scientific and technical complexes, a national evaluation system of higher education quality, and a national system of higher education data and knowledge bases.

As I see it, the most important objective of state policy is to overcome the isolation of Russian higher education from world social, humanist and advanced knowledge and from progress in science and technology. Considerable progress has been made towards successfully integrating Russian higher education into the global educational space and increasing the academic mobility of Russian students abroad. Still, international exchanges of undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students, trainees and researchers at both intergovernmental and inter-ministerial levels must be considerably expanded.