Almost 60% of Russians surveyed called the quality of higher education in the country “average”

They are satisfied with universities in the Caucasus, Siberia and the Far Eastern Federal District

The sociological agency conducted a survey designed to find out how satisfied applicants and their parents are with the quality of domestic higher education (the data is at the disposal of the editors). And it turned out that in general people are not inspired by the quality of HE. Most of all, young people aged 18-25 want universities to improve. More often than others, domestic HE is praised in the regions of the North Caucasus, Siberia and the Far East. The roots of the low-level “tower” are seen in the Unified State Examination system, mainly in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

58% of all potential applicants and their parents surveyed by the Center called the level of higher education in Russia “average.” Generation Z, known as buzzers, is especially insistent on this: 68% of girls and 55% of boys. At the same time, 20% of girls and 31% of boys in this category said that our higher education is good. Another 11% of both, on the contrary, recognized the domestic level of HE as low.

Parents are on their own wavelength – 35% of mothers and 31% of fathers of future applicants call our universities good and high quality. But there are more dissatisfied: 50% of women and 59% of men said that the quality of training in universities is “not so good.” 41% of adult respondents believe that the introduction of the state examination system had a negative impact on education. Buzzers are more loyal to state exams – 50% were in favor of the Unified State Exam and only 33% were strongly against it.

The “territorial division” of the answers is also interesting. Most of the young people who consider the quality of domestic HE not mediocre, but quite acceptable, live in the North Caucasus, Siberia and the Far East, and are dissatisfied with it in the Central District. And parents scold the Unified State Exam “in vain” in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The study also revealed such current trends as a decrease in interest in getting some kind of “crust” among young people. 38% of applicants and as many as 63% of parents admitted to taking a formal approach to obtaining a HE diploma. 50% of young people called full-time study for higher education optimal: knowledge requires physical presence in the classroom. Residents of the Far East, the Urals and the North Caucasus showed themselves to be the least interested in receiving higher education.

“Assessing the quality of education is a scientific task,” says Pavel Emelyanov, a specialist at the National Research University of Education. – There is an international PISA system, but now its work has been suspended in Russia and it concerns mainly schoolchildren, like WorldSkills for the SVE level (secondary vocational education – Author). An applied assessment of quality can be considered the participation of a particular university in university rankings. The number of scientific achievements of students, the existence of scientific schools at the university, and the high percentage of successful employment upon graduation are also indicators. But, of course, there is statistics and theory of higher education, there is research on this topic, which is being carried out at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, RANEPA and other educational centers. And this is not only the study and systematization of data on our and world universities, but also analytics, calculation of models for the development of education, and forecasting trends.

From this point of view, this survey is simply a snapshot of a situation that is already known. It is recognized that the general level of knowledge has dropped due to Covid, and this is the case all over the world. And it is obvious that many parents and students are not happy with the education system, which is not able to keep up with digitalization, multi-competencies, and the introduction of AI. And again it’s like this all over the world. On the contrary, our HE was even ahead, anticipating the trend of obtaining two and three specializations in a diploma and flexible training tracks, and introducing the “2+2+2” system (every two courses a student can change or supplement the specialization of study – Author) And From the point of view of educational theory, the Unified State Exam is undoubtedly a step forward. At the same time, some negative trends, such as the migration of applicants from rural areas to cities and from regions to capitals, remain in the field of HE. Although the work of the last few years has led to the rise of regional universities, including in domestic rankings.

The creation of the Federal Quality Assessment System in Russia was announced in July of this year. Until now, Rosobrnadzor has been the main measure of the quality of education in the country. Now, by decision of the State Duma, assessment and analysis of the quality of knowledge has been raised to the federal level.