Publications 2011

"Personnel Education and Training: Employers’ Strategies in 2007, 2009 and 2010"

Authors: Ya. Roshchina, I. Russkih

The data of the employers’ survey conducted in 2007-2010 in the framework of the Monitoring of Education Markets and Organizations showed that the problem of the labour shortage at enterprises may be resolved not only by hiring the personnel, but also by re-training the employees. About 70% of the surveyed enterprises tended to organize the vocational training, including the re-training and qualification improvement of the staff. It was found out that the personnel training policy of the enterprises is not uniform and varies according to both enterprises and categories of the employed staff (from the management to the employees). The re-training of the personnel newly hired on the external market and the re-training / advanced training of the existing personnel are the general directions of this policy.

Five re-training strategies are specified and considered, as well as the difference between the enterprises included in the corresponding clusters. The first cluster covers the enterprises that did not provide the training of their employees. The second cluster includes medium-sized enterprises in industry, construction and transport, their financial situation being moderate and above moderate. At these enterprises the training of specialists and the management is conducted at the re-training and refresher courses and training centers. A quarter of the third cluster consists of small-scale enterprises and 40% of medium-sized enterprises occupying a stable financial position, in communication and in business services. The majority of the employees already possess soft&hard skills above average. The management and specialists included in this cluster are trained at partner companies.

The largest number of educational methods as well as categories of the personnel to be trained pertain to the fourth cluster. It includes large, successful enterprises occupying a high financial position in industry and communication. The training here is organized for all specified categories of the personnel: the management and specialists are trained at refresher courses, office staff and skilled workers are trained under the guidance of most experienced personnel (i.e. instructors). The main factors to decide on the re-training of the employees are again the size of an enterprise and the assessment of skills of the newly hired personnel.

The fifth cluster is represented by small and medium-sized successful enterprises in the communication and business services the personnel of which have got a high level of soft skills. The training is organized only for specialists – they are taught on-the-job by instructors. The possible reason is that it is the main category of workers earning a profit in the sphere of communication and services. They are most numerous and, in the opinion of the management, their qualification needs improving the most.

When analyzing the re-training strategies one can also trace the specificity of the personnel categories being considered, by sectors of economy: specialists are concentrated at small- and medium-sized enterprises in business services, trade, communication; skilled workers are employed at large and medium-sized industrial enterprises. The teaching methods are chosen depending not only on the characteristic features of an enterprise (size, branch of industry, etc.) but also on the category of the personnel (specialist, worker, etc.), and this statement is confirmed by earlier surveys. The main factors influencing the selection of the personnel training strategy appeared to be such characteristics of an enterprise as the number of employees, beginners’ lack of skills, level of wages, as well as the level of soft skills of the management. At the same time a number of factors (financial situation of the enterprise, form of property, level of hard skills) that seem to influence directly the personnel training strategy appeared to be insignificant.

The training expenditures were specified as the expenditures on external and internal training. According to the outcomes of the survey the external training is the leader as far as the items of expenses is concerned: it is least effected by such characteristics as the business success of the enterprise and its financial situation. An important predictor is still the number of the personnel at the enterprise: so the internal training is not financed at small-scale enterprises while the large ones spend more on it.

The surveys show that there is no well-established system of the personnel training and development as such at the majority of the Russian enterprises. Given this the information available on the western experience and the emerging information on the successful Russian companies testifies to the fact that the employment and adaptation of a new personnel is a less effective tool for a company than the raising of efficiency of those already working by means of their continuous training.

No. 6 (53), 2011
"Trends in the motivation, employment characteristics and human capital of school teachers and educators of preschool educational institutions in 2006-2010"

Authors: Ya. Roshchina, T. Philippova

The data of the of the Monitoring of education markets and organizations over the period of 2006-2010 showed that school teachers and educators of preschool educational institutions have similar motives for choosing a profession while the structure of the motives has not been changing during the past several years. The profession of a pedagogue attracts them foremost because it is creative, interesting, corresponds to their capabilities and is related with communicating with children and youths. When selecting a place of work both teachers and educators take into account above all the good relations among the staff and with the management, as well as the working conditions (closeness to one’s home, flexible working hours, etc.).

In the recent years the proportion of teachers and educators of preschool educational institutions wishing to change the job has somehow decreased. This may testify to the growth of the labour market competitiveness in the education sphere. Those who would like to find a new job are in the first place dissatisfied with the wages level. The number of teachers having an additional job has also decreased. Still most widespread type of the secondary employment is the private tutorship.

Since 2006 the number of teachers involved in the research activity has been constantly increasing. It is most often realized in the framework of individual or collaborative projects at schools or kindergartens where the teachers work. Over this period of time the number of teachers having any scientific degree has also grown: twofold among teachers, fourfold among educators of preschool educational institutions. The utmost breakthrough may be observed in how teachers and educators have mastered the computer technologies, how often they used a computer of Internet: each of these indicators became several times higher since 2006.

Some changes are noticed in the characteristics of the budget of time and income level. As compared with 2006, the number of hours the teachers and educators of preschool educational institutions allocate for various types of activities (not all of them, but many) decreased. As far as the income is concerned one can trace a tendency of growth in income from the teaching and administrative work that is the main source of earnings for teachers at these education levels. At the same time their additional, non-permanent earnings (payment for the excess of prescribed load, additional load, etc.) decreased.

Both the school teachers and educators of preschool educational institutions are fully confident that, in respect of the wages, the educational institutions where they work are rather not competitive among the organizations of other sectors. In the teachers’ opinion in the future their educational institutions may encounter other problems as well. The strongest fears are caused by the possibility that the budgetary financing and the number of the teaching staff, as well as the salaries that are already not competitive on the labour market will decrease. When speaking about such fears the majority of teachers are not thinking about leaving the education system within the next 2 to 3 years. The main objective is to increase the competitiveness in the profession my means of improving the qualification.

No. 5 (52), 2011
"The policy of general education institutions according to outcomes of the management survey, 2010"

Authors: Irina Abankina, Maya Saveleva, Sergey Sigalov

This information bulletin presents the outcomes of the survey of the management of general education institutions (comprehensive schools) first conducted by the National Research University – Higher School of Economics in 2010 in the framework of the annual monitoring of education markets and organizations.

The main subject modules of the survey were the provision of the educational process with the main types of resources and facilities of the infrastructure, educational strategies of schools, financial policy, personnel policy, managing a school.

The majority of the management noted a growth of the amount of the budgetary financing within the inflation. Such trend was reported on average by 62.2% of the respondents. On average 48.0% of the management of schools consider the budgetary funds assigned for implementing the main educational programs to be a stable source of financing. In the 2011/2012 academic year the share of schools that went over to financing based upon the norms calculated per one pupil will be over 80%.

At the same time 38% of the management of schools on average notes a decrease of the amount of the extrabudgetary funds, this causing a negative effect on the formation of school budgets). In future the growth of the amounts of the extrabudgetary funds will be stimulated as the Federal Law 83 is fully introduced.

The demand has revealed a remaining differentiation in the level of teachers’ wages in Moscow (32.3 thousand rubles.) and regions. The difference is about three-fold. Even in large cities with the population over 1 mln the average level of teachers’ wages is assessed by the management of schools as 11.2 thousand rubles.

The share of young teachers (below 30) in the structure of the school pedagogical personnel is insignificant and differs slightly depending upon the type of a locality - from 10.5% in small towns to 15.9% in Moscow. This is related with a small number of vacancies for teachers, these vacancies being occupied by teachers from older age groups.

According to assessments by the management of general education institutions a high level of provision (above the 80% threshold level) is noticed for all types of resources (of 10 proposed for the assessment), except the provision of schools with computers (64.1% on average).

A high level of the assessment (above 80%) by the management of general education institutions is reported regarding such facilities of the infrastructure as premises for studies, a computer classroom, a library (library fund), a sports hall, a medical room. The level of provision with school sports grounds and media-libraries is assessed as being less, but it is higher than the 50% critical one.

The majority of the management report that at their general education institutions the admission of pupils on the primary general and basic general education levels is performed without admission tests. The proportion of pupils who entered schools based upon the results of the admission tests increases noticeably when moving to senior grades at lycees and the high school, this testifying to the fact that the management of such education institutions implements a strategy of selecting the most prepared pupils capable to cope with the programs of the second stage of general education.

The analysis of the collected data revealed a high rate of development of network communication between the education institutions and the institutions of the social and cultural sphere.

The enlisting of resources of other education institutions and institutions of the social sphere is based mainly upon using specific legal tools, that is on a contract basis. Such way of establishing a network interaction between schools and other institutions of the social sphere is preferred by 45% of the management of schools on average.

The survey showed a high rate of the information transparency of schools. An overwhelming majority of the surveyed schools (over 82%) situated in the localities of all types (in Moscow 100%) have got a site in the Internet.

However in 30% of schools in the country-side However in 30% of rural schools the rate of the is below 128 Kbit/sec, hence the IT- technologies cannot be used effectively in the educational process.

The outcomes of the survey of the school management confirm that the parents’ influence on the schools’ activities has grown (30.5%), the orientation of the education towards the consumers’ interests has increased (22.3%), the system of managing schools has become more transparent (40.9%), this being related to considerable extent with the participation of representatives of the parents’ community in the work of the councils that manage schools.

Such form of the communities’ participation in managing a general education institution as a managing council has become most widespread at schools located in small towns and in the country-side (70.6% and 67.9% of schools respectively).

No. 4 (51), 2011
"Professional Education Institutions: Strategies of the Management"

Authors: Yaroslav Kuzminov, Olga Shuvalova

The bulletin presents the outcomes of the 2010 survey of the management of vocational education institutions conducted in the framework of the annual monitoring since 2003. The strategies of the management are considered in the four main directions: educational policy (at the stages of students’ enrolment, educational process, graduates’ employment), pricing, financial, personnel policies. The period being surveyed is characterized by the continuing demographic decline, consequences of the economic crisis, introduction of the Single state examination (SSE) and implementation of the two-level training system in higher professional education.

• More and more educational institutions become aware of the reduction of both the amount of the budgetary financing and extra-budgetary funds. The educational institutions are poorly provided with the means of qualification improvement and motivation of the teaching activity. In the secondary and lower vocational education there was also revealed an insufficient provision with modern educational programs and training equipment, software and databases. Besides that in the lower vocational education lacks the educational literature, computers and Internet access. Meanwhile the involvement of the production (instrumentation) base of enterprises and research organizations in the educational process is reducing.

• The institutions still perceive the consequences of the demographic decline. The management believes that this factor influences utmost the financial situation of educational institutions. More and more institutions report about the enrolment decrease; the proportion of those enrolled based upon an application, without an entrance competition is growing (in secondary vocational education by 15%, in lower vocational education by 95%, while in the higher education institutions the limit of 3% is preserved). The level of the students’ knowledge also falls, this being reported by one in five heads of higher education institutions, one in three heads in the secondary vocational education and every other in the lower vocational education. Under the circumstances the educational institutions have to be more active in winning the entrants, to modify their strategies by improving the quality of educational programs.

• The analysis of measures that were taken to adjust the structure of educational programs shows that from year to year the management of educational institutions would be focused more often on launching new educational programs than closing certain ones. In 2010 the proportion of higher education institutions that have launched new programs during the three years preceding the survey exceeds many times (многократно) the number of higher education institutions that have withdrawn some programs (60 and 14% respectively). Such strategies lead to a dissipation of resources and decrease of the quality of all programs, including those that could be more successful provided the resources are concentrated more efficiently.

• More often new programs aimed at the high solvent demand of the population in economy, social sciences and law were launched, and it is done not only by core higher education institutions but almost by half the agricultural, a third of pedagogical, a quarter of technical, a fifth part of medical and even one of ten higher educational institutions of the art history profile. Given this the management themselves notice that it is in the field of social and economic sciences in particular that one can observe the lowest quality teaching.

• The consequences of the economic crisis adversely affected the graduates’ employment: at all three levels of the vocational education there are becoming lower the assessment of the proportion of graduates who were employed in line with their speciality and forecasts regarding the level of wages that the graduates can get immediately after they were employed. Slightly better is the situation at Moscow educational institutions in comparison with other regions. The highest wages are those that can get the graduates of Moscow higher education institutions who studied the social and economic specialities, namely up to 52 thousand rubles. In other regions of Russia in the first place are the specialities in the engineering sciences and social and economic disciplines (in both cases the graduates can get up to 25 thousand rubles).

• The graduates of higher education institutions studying in the fields of engineering sciences, health care and service business have the best perspectives as far as their employment is concerned; slightly lower these perspectives are in the economics, social sciences and law, still lower – in the humanities and culture, the lowest assessments being in the education sphere and agricultural sciences. In secondary vocational education the medical specialities are leading, followed by the services sector, education and engineering sciences, humanities, natural sciences, economics, social sciences, law and agricultural specialities. In lower vocational education the services sector is in the first place, followed by the engineering sciences, agricultural specialities, social and economic sciences and natural sciences, humanities; this rating is closed by education and health care.

• The crisis phenomena in the economy have indirectly and positively affected the decrease of the young teaching staff turnover. Yet only 5% of higher education institutions and 1 to 3% of lower and secondary vocational institutions try to compete with commercial companies in the remuneration of the teachers’ labour. 25% of higher education institutions and 15 to 20% of institutions in lower vocational and secondary vocational education claim to be the leaders among the educational institutions, while the major part of them position themselves at the level of other educational institutions.

• In 2010 the average wage rate of the teaching staff at higher education institutions in Moscow was 30 thousand rubles, in other cities– 18 thousand rubles; at secondary vocational education institutions in Moscow – 33 thousand rubles, in other cities – 12 thousand rubles; at lower vocational education institutions (all institutions of this level being located outside Moscow) – 11 thousand rubles per month. At the same time an approximate estimate of a wage when teachers could afford to focus on their main activity (abandon a second job) is twice as high, while the wage rate that would make it possible to invite promising young teachers or the best graduates to work full-time is one and a half times as much in Moscow and almost twice as much in other cities

• At higher education institutions and technical secondary schools the additional payments are also made actively for administrative work; at technical secondary schools and vocational schools the work with students formalized as advisement exists. But the number of teachers getting such additional payments is small, basically not more than a quarter of the total number of the teaching staff. As compared with the core activities, the amount of additional resources does not exceed 50% of the basic salary at half the institutions. Besides a fifth of institutions can provide an additional payment that constitutes up to a 100% of the basic salary. Only 3% of institutions in lower vocational education, 5% in secondary vocational education and 8% of higher education institutions can pay above this level (up to 200% and more). The rest of the institutions (a third in higher education and about a quarter in secondary vocational and lower vocational education) do not provide regular additional payments or they do not exceed 10% of the basic salary. The second source to increase the salary is an additional job within educational institutions, namely: conducting additional education courses, preparation courses (more often teachers of higher professional and secondary vocational education institutions earn for these types of work), production activity (this opportunity is used more often in lower vocational education) and research activity (mainly at higher education institutions). However these sources would also provide mainly up to 50% of the basic salary.

• As reported by the management of higher education institutions, on average 40% of the teaching staff is engaged in the research at their institutions; 12% of the older age group and 18% of young teachers participate in the research performed at other organizations. At the same time about 15% more of teachers of the older age group and 23% more of young teachers do not conduct the research, but could do so. The level of realization of the scientific potential is noticeably lower at private higher education institution than at the state ones, it is also somewhat lower at higher education institutions in Moscow in comparison with other regions.

No. 3 (50), 2011
"The policy of preschool education institutions according to outcomes of the management survey, 2010"

Authors: Irina Abankina, Maya Saveleva, Sergey Sigalov

This information bulletin presents the outcomes of the survey conducted first in 2010 in the framework of the annual monitoring of education markets and organizations. The survey of the management of preschool education institutions showed a high level of their provision with such types of resources as the personnel resources (office and management personnel, qualified teaching personnel), material and technical resources (children’s furniture and inventory, toys and sports equipment), educational premises (classrooms for group studies). The level of provision with these types of resources is higher than is considered critical (60%).

The admission in preschool education institutions has become the most urgent topic for discussion owing to the great demand for such service. At 71.4% of preschool education institutions a growth of completion rate was noticed. This result reflects the growth of demand for services of preschool education stipulated both by the parents’ trust in preschool education, in highly professional teachers and by the increase of the birth-rate all over the country, even in localities with a small number of the population.

In the opinion of the management of preschool education institutions the most important characteristic of the high quality of education and care in a preschool education institution is the pupils’ health. In the second place, as far as the management is concerned, there are the opinions of parents of pupils studying at preschool education institutions. Thus a strategy of maintaining and improving the children’s health in a preschool education institution is a priority, sometimes to the detriment of the teaching strategy, to the detriment of developing the individual abilities of children. Not more than 22% of respondents choose the answer “an availability of additional programs, various educational options”.

The majority of the management (52.0% on average) would characterize the change of the amount of the budgetary financing as a “slight growth – within the inflation”. The growth of this indicator higher than the inflation is reported by a small share of the management (11.2% on average).

The fund of remuneration of labour for the teaching personnel over the past three years has slightly increased within the inflation. Such change in the fund of remuneration of teachers’ labour does not allow the management of preschool education institutions to implement an effective personnel policy, to attract young teachers. One can ascertain the tendency of preserving a low level of teachers’ salaries at preschool education institutions even as compared with the salaries of school teachers.

The growth of the households’ payment leaving behind the inflation is noted on average at 27% of preschool education institutions located in small towns and in the country-side, that is in the localities where the solvent demand of the population is the least. This testifies to the tendency of shifting a financial load for providing services of the care and teaching of children in preschool education institutions from municipal budgets to households’ budgets.

The outcomes of the management of preschool education institutions confirm that the parents’ influence on the activities of a preschool education institution has grown (45.8%); there also has increased the orientation of the education towards the consumers interests (37.4%); the managerial system of a preschool education institution has become more transparent (67.7%). This characterizes the outcomes of implementing the model of state and public managing of preschool education institutions as effective.

No. 2 (49), 2011

"The change of parents’ strategies in the field of pre-school and school education of children in 2006-2010"

Authors: Ya. Roshchina, T. Philippova

The data on the Monitoring of Education Markets and Organizations indicate that the structure of motives for selecting educational institutions over the period of 2006-2010 was stable. The main criterion for choosing a school and a kindergarten by parents was the proximity to their home. During the examined period the proportion of pupils who studied completely free has increased, but at the same time there also grew the expenditures of those paying for the education. Given this two thirds of households are willing to increase their expenses if its quality becomes higher. The highest solvent demand of parents concerns specialized or additional educational programs. The consumption of additional services within schools has not grown over these years. A possibility of take textbooks home is most popular while attending additional lessons, electives and courses of some subjects takes second place.

In 2010 there increased the number of pupils attending some groups (so called circles), courses and sports sections outside school. The main reason for attending such additional studies outside school is the child’s desire. Parents are willing to invest more in the education of their children –“ if not in terms of money, then at least in terms of time”: the majority of pupils would be usually accompanied by adults when attending studies of this kind. More than a quarter of pupils study also with a coacher, usually to catch up with rest of the pupils in some subject. The share of secondary school pupils who plan to continue studying in the 10th -11th grades is stable – about 78%. The share of 8th – 11th grade pupils who intend to enter a higher education institution (including the tuition by correspondence, combining studies with work, etc.) after graduating from school almost does not change as well – about four fifths of all pupils. Although the proportion of households oriented towards paid higher education has somehow lowered in 2009-2010, the willingness to pay for studying at a higher education institution continued to increase.

As far as kindergartens is concerned beginning with 2006 the payment for attending regional establishments has increased (by changing the payment in private establishments), while in Moscow it decreased. A fairly large share of households spends money on the so called “needs of a kindergarten” that is often a disguised form of payment for a child’s care. However 85% of parents are willing to pay more if the quality of services is better. Muscovites agree to bear higher expenses on preschool education. At the same time the demand for additional services provided by kindergartens has drastically decreased over the period of 2006-2010, while the proportion of children attending different circles, courses and sections outside childhood pre-school establishments almost has not changed.

About two thirds of parents of children attending kindergartens are already pondering over choosing a school. The structure of motives in selecting a future school is close to the structure of motives for parents of children who are already pupils: a prevalent criterion is the proximity of a school. But over 4 years the proportion of parents both who would prefer to send the children to a specialized school and those who are oriented towards free education has grown.

No. 1 (48), 2011
"Employers' strategies: human resources and education"
(Features of the personnel policy and employers’ cooperation within the vocational education system during the post-crisis period of 2009-2010)

Authors: Marina Krasilnikova, Natalia Bondarenko

This issue presents the results of the 2010 survey conducted in the framework of the annual monitoring of the employers’ activity in the labour market and their demand for cooperation with vocational education institutions. It continues the investigation of features of the personnel policy at enterprises in the difficult post-crisis economic conditions. Particularly there are considered the acuteness of the problems of the personnel lack / excess, the employers’ satisfaction with the employees’ professionalism including that of young specialists, the demand for personnel training programs and their prevalence. The practices of the personnel employment are studied, particularly the signals used by employers when evaluating the professional competence of candidates for vacancies.

Over the past 2 years the enterprises have adjusted the personnel structure to their current needs and capabilities taking into consideration the change of the demand for their production and other external conditions. Although over the last year the demand for some categories of the personnel was restoring after its reduction, the share of enterprises that have not employed the new personnel at all increased from 8% as to the 2008 survey to 16% as to the 2010 survey.

The employers’ interest in young specialists has partially resumed when the employers come to the labour market in search of employees they need. But now the enterprises would employ higher education graduates less frequently than 4 to 5 years ago. The employment of graduates from lower and secondary vocational education institutions is still less prevalent.

The employers’ assessment of higher education graduates remains stable as “satisfactory”, and it appears that the assessment of the professional level of graduates of different profiles by the management of different branches of economy is similar.

The employers as a whole do not believe that the complicated signals concerning the quality of vocational training (certificate of a master’s degree, diploma of a prestigious education institution) are significant for the purpose of assessing a young specialist, although a diploma of a higher education institution is becoming an obligatory prerequisite even in the sectors of the economy where a formal education was less required still 5 years ago.

The reduction of cooperation between enterprises and education institutions was recorded even before the 2008 crisis, and the crisis period has only secured this tendency. According to the 2010 survey the employers’ interest in cooperation with higher education institutions has slightly revived, although so far it takes place only in some sectors of the economy. While over the past 2 years the most drastic reduction of the scale of cooperation has been noticed in the construction where the relation with the education system was earlier traditionally active.

For a majority of employers the getting out of the crisis 2008 situation has relatively dragged on, this also extending a deficit of financial resources assigned for the vocational training of the personnel. The gap between the large and medium / small business as far as the scale of the personnel vocational training is concerned has grown over the past 2 years, though during the last year the enterprises of the medium business have been partially restoring their programs of improvement of the personnel qualification and retraining of their personnel.

The “freezing” of the personnel development programs for a considerable length of time would break the process of accumulating the professional competences of the workers. Consequently the quality of the work force supply (that even at the present time gives rise to doubts on behalf of the employers) will hardly change for the better.