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Russia

President Vladimir Putin recently approved a plan for reforming the country’s under-funded education system. The reform measures will focus on improving conditions for teachers, making higher education more accessible, reviving people’s trust in the system and adjusting the system to better suit the country’s needs.

The government says it will allocate US$1.87 billion through 2005 to reform the system, which suffered major setbacks when state funding evaporated after the collapse of the communist system. For the past 10 years, Russia’s schools have been plagued by salary arrears, teacher shortages and a lack of modern equipment and textbooks, especially in remote regions. Higher education has become increasingly expensive and subject to corruption, as it is becoming more and more commercialized.

The declining status of teachers is particularly alarming. One source said the profession has become so unattractive that only about 50 percent of pedagogical college graduates go on to teach after graduation.

Among the proposals are to lengthen the pre-university education from 11 to 12 years and to administer a unified test that would make college entrance more egalitarian. To pass the existing exams, students must often hire expensive tutors, while applicants from remote areas must scrape up cash to travel to the institutions they wish to attend.

If it is introduced, a unified test could at least reduce corruption among professors involved in admitting students and give a chance to truly gifted students.

— St. Petersburg Times
Aug. 31, 2001

Ukraine

For information on colleges and universities in the Ukraine, including news, educational organizations and distance learning programs, please visit: The Educational Network Ukraine