Education follows demography

Over the past 20 years, the number of students in most educational programs has declined, experts from the Higher School of Economics found out after analyzing data from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Education and Science and Rosstat in Education Monitoring.

In 2021, 32.3 million people were covered by the education system. More than half (53.7%) are schoolchildren, a quarter (22.7%) are pupils of kindergartens, another quarter (23.6%) received secondary vocational or higher education. Compared to 2001, the demand for educational programs has decreased, as evidenced by the indicators of both enrollment and graduation of students, with the exception of preschool education programs, where from 2001 to 2021 enrollment increased by 66%, and graduation by 75%. The latter is largely due to the fact that since 2000, the number of children aged 2–3 years has grown annually to a maximum in 2017 (+53% compared to 2001), but in the next four years the indicator decreased again (by 20% compared to 2017). Also, the growth in flows in preschool education is associated with a policy of increasing its accessibility, which the government has been implementing by the May presidential decree since 2012. As a result, the provision of places in pre-school education organizations increased from 553 places per 1,000 children aged 1-6 in 2010 to 740 in 2021. The availability of preschool education for children aged 1.5-3 years old as of January 1, 2022 was 96%, 3-7 years old – 99.6%.

The largest drop in the number of applicants among educational programs was shown by programs of secondary vocational education for training programs for skilled workers and employees (SCMS). The number of students accepted to study under these programs in 2021 turned out to be 68% lower than in 2001, the output decreased even more – by 71%. This, the authors of the monitoring note, runs counter to the demographic trends for the cohort of Russians aged 15-17 and clearly indicates a decrease in the demand for such programs. Thus, over the past 20 years, the number of Russians in these ages has decreased only 1.7 times (from 7.6 million people to 4.5 million people), while enrollment for SCRC programs has decreased by more than three times – from 640 thousand people to 210 thousand people.

Anastasia Manuylova