Образование в России
EDUCATION IN RUSSIA
Secondary education is mandatory in Russia. Children
start school at the
age of 6 and finish at 17 . As a rule, a child attends
the school located
in the neighborhood,the one which is the closes to home .
However , there
in big cities there are also so-called
"special" schools , offering more
in-depth studies of the major European
languages ( English , French, or
German), or the advanced courses in physics
and mathematics, and children
attending one of these may have to commute
from home. There are no school
buses in Russia.
The first stage of education is elementary
school for grades 1 through 4.
The second is secondary school for grades
5 through 9 . Upon graduation
from secondary school ( which is not the
equivalent of having completed
their secondary education ) , students
are given the choice of either
continuing to attend the same school (high
school; grades 10 and 11 ), or
entering a vocational school or trade
school. Both vocational school and
trade schools are meant to provide one ,
long with the certificate of
secondary education, with a number of
useful skills ( e.g. , those of an
electrician, technical, or computer
operator ).One attends the former for
two years, and the latter for three or
four.
Haveing completed one's secondary
education, one can either become part
There are universityes and so-called
"institutes" in Russian . The former
stress a more teoretical , fundamental
approach to education , while the
latter are more practice oriented.
There are no medical schools or
departments with in the structure of
Russian universitys . Future doctors attend
medical institutes. There are
no degrees in Russian equivalent to
those of bachelor's or master's.
Students spend approximately five years
in college or six in a medical
institute.
To be admited to an institution of higher
learning , one has to pass a
series of oral and written tests. Grades in
the certificate of secondary
education are also taken account.
Entry to higher education is quite
competitive. Some college departments
( philologist,foreign languages-especially
English,law, journalism ) have
dozens of applicants for one prospective
student's position. The same is
true of medical and theatre institutes.
Up to the present, neither college
students nor schoolchildren have had
any say in the selection of courses
they had to take. Everyone has
studied according to uniform series
of guide lines approved by the
Ministery of Higher Education .
Evidently , this situation is going to
change in the near future.
students with good grades were
rewarded with a modest stipend . All
institutions of higher learning were
subsidized by the government . Now
that the country is changing to a
market-place economy, the system of
education is also bound to undergo
profound changes . The first private
scholls , gymnasiums and lycees, have
already been founded in Moscow and
St. Petersburg , in an attempt to
revive the pre-1917 traditionals of
Russian educational system with its high
standards of excellence.