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Regular version of the site

Publications 2012

  Full text in Russian (.pdf)

No. 9(63), 2012
" School and preschool education: attitudes of households having pupils who attended state, municipal and private institutions in 2006-2011"

Authors: Ya. Roshchina, T. Philippova

Data of a recurrent survey within monitoring of education markets and organizations showed that the structure of motives for selecting an education institution had changed not too significantly over four years. The main criteria for parents when choosing a school or a kindergarten are closeness to their home and qualified teaching staff. Although the proportion of pupils studying free of charge increased, the households paying for education had to pay more. At the same time two thirds of households are ready to pay more for school education. The highest solvent demand of parents concerns specialized and supplementary educational programmes.

The consumption of additional services provided by schools has not changed practically over five years. The demand is highest in respect of a possibility of borrowing textbooks to study at home, then comes attending additional studies, electives, courses of certain subjects.

In 2011 a proportion of pupils attending some circles, courses and groups outside school increased. The main reason for attending such additional studies outside school is a child’s desire. Parents are willing to invest ever more in children’s education – if not money then at least time, as the majority of schoolchildren are usually accompanied by adults when attending studies.

Over a quarter of schoolchildren study with a private tutor, more often in order to catch up with the rest in a subject.

A rather high proportion of households spend money on the so called needs of an education institution, this also being often a kind of a disguised form of payment for teaching. However 85% of pupils’ parents are willing to pay more provided the education quality improves. The parents of children studying at private education institutions are ready to bear higher expenses on preschool education.

At the same time over the period from 2006 to 2011 a demand for additional services of kindergartens has decreased dramatically, while the proportion of children attending some circles, courses and sports groups beyond preschool education institutions.

About two thirds of preschoolers’ parents are already thinking about selecting a school. The structure of motives to select a school is close to that of parents whose children attend school: more often the main criterion is closeness to their home and qualified pedagogical personnel. However during four years the proportion of those who would prefer sending a child to a specialized school as well as those who is oriented towards free-of-charge education.

The status schools and ordinary schools differ in the options of educational choices, as well as assessments regarding the parents’ satisfaction with their children’s educational level.

The proportion of secondary school pupils who are planning to continue studying in 10th-11th grades is rather stable – about 78%. The proportion of 8th-11th grade pupils who upon finishing school are going to enter a higher education institution (including distant education, combining studies with work, etc.) is almost unchanged, comprising about four fifths of all pupils. Although the proportion of households oriented towards paid higher education has somewhat decreased in 2009 and 2011, the willingness to pay for studying at a higher education institution was still growing.

 

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No. 8(62), 2012
" Labour status of teachers of higher, secondary vocational and lower vocational education institutions in 2006-2011: similarity and differences "

Authors: Ya.Roschina

The structure of motives of teachers of professional education institutions differs not very substantially and is rather stable. All three categories of respondents consider an interesting, creative work, compliance of work and capabilities and educational attainment, communicating with youths as the most attractive feature of this occupation. Over 5 years the structure of motives of various levels of the professional education system began to differ noticeably, this, among other reasons, owing to the fact, that the teaching staff of higher education institutions would more often indicate the motives of liberty, creativity and professional advancement as compared to their colleagues employed at secondary vocational and lower vocational education institutions.

A rather high proportion of teachers of all levels of professional education wish to change a place of work or even give up the work (in 2011 from 36.6% among teachers in lower vocational education to 23.1% in higher education). But this indicator has slightly decreased since 2006 for all categories of the surveyed.

A considerable part of respondents had some other job apart from teaching at an education institution. The proportion of those having some other job is highest among teachers of higher education institutions (64.8% in 2011). This proportion was 41.5%, among teachers of secondary vocational education and 28% in lower vocational education.

Over 5 years the mean nominal incomes from the principal activity (i.e. teaching and administrative work at the sampled education institutions) of teachers of higher education institutions increased almost twofold, those of teachers of secondary education institutions – 2.5-fold and those of teachers of lower vocational institutions –1.3-fold. In 2011 an average teacher of a Russian higher education institution earned 17.7 thousand roubles at the principal place of work (teaching and administrative work). Incomes of teachers of secondary vocational education institutions and especially those in lower vocational education were substantially lower for all main income items.

The monitoring showed that information technologies are as yet applied insufficiently when programmes of education courses are elaborated, particularly at lower vocational and secondary vocational institutions (25% of higher education institutions, 35.6% of secondary vocational institutions, and 43.8% of lower vocational education institutions do not use them). This also impedes the progress in distant education and education by correspondence. At the same time the proportion of teachers using educational technologies is sufficiently high, however information and communication technologies have not become yet a permanent means of communication between teachers and students.

 

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No. 7 (61), 2012
"Strategies of Preschool Education Institutions"

Authors: Irina Abankina, Maya Saveleva, Sergey Sigalov

The National Research University – Higher School of Economics continued in 2011 the monitoring of preschool education institutions’ strategies based upon the assessments provided by their management.

Several most significant points should be specified.

The average class-size of preschool education institutions has been increasing in the localities of all types. This reflects the growing demand for preschool educational services caused both by the parents’ trust in preschool education institutions and professional teachers and the growing birth rate all over the country, even in localities with a small number of the population.

As far as the development of the financial and economic independence of preschool education institutions is concerned there was no marked progress. They passed the initiative to their founders. But the founders preferred to transform the preschool education institutions into the types of budgetary institutions that are most strictly controlled under the existing legal regulation, namely the budgetary and state-owned educational institution entities. In fact the heads of educational institutions gave up the development of financial and economic independence of preschool education institutions and there was preserved the directive and administrative style of managing the network of preschool education institutions within their jurisdiction.

It was found out that the authority of controlling the average class-size of preschool education institutions (directing and enrolling children in certain preschool institutions) had been shifted from the level of the preschool education institutions’ administration to the founders’ level, namely the municipal bodies governing the education, this being related with the long waiting list at preschool education institutions, in the urban area in particular. Actually it means that the authority is centralized and the governing bodies have taken over the control of the process of enrolment in preschool education institutions in order to reduce the abuse, increase transparency and secure equity.

A conservative character of the personnel policy, an extremely rare personnel rotation and a small proportion of young teachers were noted at the present level of education development.

 

 

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No. 6 (60), 2012
"Teachers and educators on the labour market: private and state schools and preschool education institutions in 2006-2011"

Authors: Ya. Roshchina, T. Philippova

Both teachers and educators at schools have similar motives of choosing a profession and the structure of motives has not been changing over several recent years. The profession of a pedagogue attracts them, in the first instance, because it is creative, interesting, corresponding to their capabilities and it is related with a personal contact with children and youths. At the same time the motive of implementing the capabilities and creative intentions is more explicit for teachers working at private schools.

When choosing a place of work, both teachers and educators would pay most attention to good relations with colleagues and the management, as well as to acceptable working conditions (closeness to their homes, flexible schedule, etc.). A good climate in the collective is valued more by teachers of private schools, the closeness of work to their homes and flexible working schedule are more attractive for teachers of state and municipal institutions and, to a greater extent, educators of preschool education institutions.

In 2011 the proportion of teachers and educators willing to change a place of work was about a third. Teachers and educators of state and municipal education institutions are not satisfied with the situation any more. Those wishing to find a different job firstly express complain concerning the salary level. The number of teachers having an additional work remains stable, while the proportion of educators at preschool education institutions who have an additional employment has slightly decreased. Most widespread type of a secondary employment is still tutorship, as to educators of preschool education institutions it is nurses’ services. The main motive of a secondary employment is a desire to earn money; as to teachers of private institutions, having spare time is more distinct.

The previously recorded growth of the number of users of the Internet, email, other electronic communication among teachers and educators of preschool education institutions continued in 2011. However teachers believe that their computer skills in using software and the overall level of computer literacy are unsatisfactory as before. More often it is in this field, along with mastering a foreign language, where they wish to improve their skills.

Over the surveyed period one would notice significant changes in the characteristic of the expenditure of time and income levels. As compared to 2007 the number of hours spent on administrative work has somewhat decreased. There is a visible tendency of income growth for all categories of teachers and educators of preschool education institutions during 2007–2011. Speaking about earnings from teaching and administrative activities that can be judged of more definitely, incomes of teachers at state and private schools evened; the incomes of educators at preschool education institutions ate still higher than those of their colleagues employed at state institutions.

On the whole it may be noted that the majority of schoolteachers and educators of preschool education institutions do not think about changing a place of work and quitting the profession within the nearest 2-3 years. They are mainly oriented towards continuing to work by profession and raise their competitiveness in this sphere.

 

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No. 5 (59), 2012
"Strategies of professional education institutions"

Authors: Yaroslav Kuzminov, Olga Shuvalova

The surveys of the management of professional education institutions conducted annually since 2003 are a component of monitoring of education markets and organizations. The purpose of the surveys is to determine the degree of compliance of the management’s strategies with the interests of the state and realities of the progress of society. The conception of the professional education institutions’ management concerning the educational services market and the present state and perspectives of their institutions’ development is studied (the surveyed being both experts and persons who make decisions in the professional education sphere). Thus the target population of the surveys within this direction of monitoring of education markets and organizations are directors, deputy directors responsible for educational activities of technical secondary schools, colleges, specialized schools, lyceums; rectors and deputy rectors of educational academies, universities and institutes.

The strategies of the management of professional education institutions are considered in the main directions of the institutions’ activities: firstly, the educational policy (in the following sequence: entrants; directions of improving educational programmes; graduates’ employment strategies), then pricing, financial and personnel policies. For each direction initially the conditions of an institution’s activity which are important for implementing strategies in this direction are assessed.

Factors influencing the selection of a particular strategy are examined annually. Such factors include the conception of the management concerning the position of the institution on the educational services market and on the labour market, this becoming more and more topical in the recent years in connection with the continuing demographic decline and low incomes of the population. The outcomes of the educational policy of the state are also considered, particularly the introduction of the unified state exam, changes within the system of the remuneration of labour, adoption of the two-level system of higher education (Bachelor, Master), etc. The status of an educational institution (state or private), type of locality where it is situated, and sector of economy are also considered as the factors.

It is necessary to preserve the monitoring character of the survey and, at the same time, to direct it towards the topical problems of professional education related both with altering external conditions (decrease in demand for demographic decline, low incomes of the majority of the population, changing for the worse of the level of knowledge of entrants, consequences of the world financial and economic crisis) and existing internal problems related with introducing the unified state exam, implementing the two-level education system, and motivating research activity in higher education.

In the 2011 survey special attention is paid to topical problems of professional education related both with the change of the external conditions (decrease in demand owing to demographic decline and low incomes of the major part of the population, changing for the worse of the level of knowledge of entrants, consequences of the world financial and economic crisis) and internal problems caused by the educational policy of the state (introducing the unified state exam, implementing the two-level education system, motivating research activity of the teaching staff at higher education institutions). As to the specific feature of the 2011 survey, it is investigating a number of issues concerned with the attendance status (full-time, part-time, distant), including differences in the cost of studies and intensiveness of adjusting the structure of educational programmes.

 

 

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No. 4 (58), 2012
"Employers' strategies: human resources and education" (Features of the personnel policy and employers’ cooperation within the vocational education system during the period of 2010-2011 years) "

Authors: Marina Krasilnikova, Natalia Bondarenko

The bulletin presents the outcomes of the 2011 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.

Over the past two years is gradually increasing the number of enterprises that are faced with shortage of the staff. Only half of the companies have had the number of employees that meet their needs. The categories in demand are professionals with line authority and skilled workers.

There are different employer’s strategies to cope with the problem of personnel shortage: turning to the labour market, providing additional training to current employees, involving graduates and students. Using migrant labour as a form to fill opened vacancies is not widespread practice for Russian enterprises. The majority of employers has a low opinion of migrants’ qualification and regards them only as low-skilled occupants. Among all enterprises that interested in unskilled personnel migrant workers are much in demand especially in construction companies.

After a decline of interest to employ graduates during 2006-2009, in the past two years Russian enterprises have resumed the level of their hiring. Most companies tend to hire university students - a trend observed in innovative as well as in traditional industries. Hiring graduates with secondary or primary vocational training mostly take place in traditional industries - construction, transport and trade. The highest rate of graduates’ hiring of all levels of vocational education is in a manufacturing industry. In general, employers give slightly lower estimates of recent graduates’ professional knowledge compared with more experienced workers. However, university graduates have an advantage in ability to be retrained and in learning new methods of work.

A diploma of higher education remains as one of the basic requirements for employment, even in those economic sectors where the need for formal education had previously been less strict.

One of the criteria for selection qualified employees for the vacant position is a form of professional training obtained. Diploma of full-time training is preferred for half of employers surveyed. Requirements of obligatory full-time education diploma reduce by decreasing the job position of employee (from the head to an office worker).

However, in situation of hiring current students employers prefer to accept for employment candidates with distance training rather than applicants receiving daily full-time education. It should also be noted that most of the demand on the students, as well as for graduates, is in business services, manufacturing and communications. In general, the recruitment of students combining work with study provide a third to a half of the enterprises surveyed.

For the mass of the employer a diploma of vocational education is a necessary but not sufficient condition to make a decision of hire. Employers who have hired new employees in the last two years said that the additional training is required for a quarter and a third of employees. This trend mostly related to business to business service and communications – most innovative sectors, which focused on advanced scientific practices, so they more often tend to provide additional training to new employees, including recent graduates.

A lot of employers feel necessity in staff development. At the same time the number of enterprises, which support developing and upgrading professional skills, is decreasing. It should be also noted, that the recessional fall in appealing to professional education institutions has still not been overcome. Nevertheless it is the second year employers are showing intentions to extend collaboration with universities as well as technical and vocational schools, employers hardly ever use such opportunity even in serious need. There are still significant discrepancies between different employers (e.g. small and large business, construction and communications sectors) in organization’s resources for programs of staff development and cooperation with training institutions. Companies prefer less explicit forms of cooperation with the last one. Not more than 10 per cent of enterprises would make contract for training prepared specialist. According to the survey results, the employers are likely to make their choice not only on external evaluations and ratings, but proceeding from internal evaluation criteria and collaboration experience, as well as the opportunity to conduct a dialogue on particular requests. Companies prefer to cultivate such forms of cooperation as organizing internship, open days, career fairs, and employing graduates. However, enterprises are more actively interacting with training institutions in traditional economic sectors (manufacturing, construction, transport).

 

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No. 3 (57), 2012
"Survey-based Analysis of General Education Institutions’ Policies, 2011"

Authors: Irina Abankina, Maya Saveleva, Sergey Sigalov

The conducted survey has revealed that the high level of professional characteristics (such as the level of education, participation in additional education/training, years of experience) of the respondents being the management of general education institutions was preserved. The gender imbalance in the director corps has not changed.

Such kind of resources as the percentage distribution of the personnel, teaching premises, teaching equipment, multimedia equipment, computer facilities, financial resources remain at the previous level which is rather high. However the outcomes of the survey show that the considerable financial injections in the budgets of general education institutions made in the course of implementing the National Educational Initiative “Our New School” in 2010-2011 have not increased the level of provision of general education schools with the broadband access to Internet resources. The majority of rural schools are not provided with the speed of Internet access sufficient to use the information resources efficiently. This effects in the negative the possibilities of implementing distant educational programmes that are especially topical when organizing a network interaction with small general education institutions located in the rural hard-to-reach regions where it is impossible to arrange a transportation of pupils to basic schools.

In 2011 the process of transition of general education schools into budgetary institutions of new types was started in the subjects of the Russian Federations. Judging by the outcomes of the survey the management of educational institutions do not pay attention or are not informed about the transformation and consequences related with the changes in the educational institutions typology, relying on the choice of one or another type of an educational institution made by the founders. In most case the founders would monopolize the right to choose a type of an educational institution which they are legally empowered. An educational institution would take the initiative considerably rarely. The initiative on the part of the school management is restricted by the established character of relations and communication between the founders and the school management that is supported by the existing regulatory and legal base, as well as by the law-enforcement practice.

The implementation of such strategy restrains the expansion of the process of educational institutions transition to financial and economic independence based upon the principle of the responsible financial management resulting in an inertial scenario of development when the status quo is preserved as far as the financial and economic independence of schools is concerned. Most conservative are rural municipal regions. The proportion of autonomous institutions does not exceed 4%.

According to the respondents’ assessments the amounts of budgetary financing were increased substantially over the past period. One can notice a considerable change in the growth of salary fund and budgetary financing norm of institutions. At the same time, as to the management’s assessments, the off-budget incomes of general education schools did not change at all. The proportion of amounts generated from the activities that pay off constitutes not more than 4.4% in the structure of incomes of general education schools, while the budgetary funds constitute the lion’s share of incomes: from 78.8% in schools located in the cities with the population of a million or above to 96.6% in rural schools.

 

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No. 2 (56), 2012
"Flows of Students and Financial Flows in the Educational System of Russia"

Authors: G. Androushchak, A. Proudnikova, N. Schugal

The bulletin presents an estimation and a descriptive analysis of student flows as well as an evaluation of financial flows in the education sector in 2008-2010. The main levels of education are considered, these being the programmes of preschool education, primary, basic and secondary (complete) general education, lower and secondary vocational education, higher and postgraduate education.

The outcomes of the student flows assessment may be presented in the form of the flow charts (for several years) as well as structures of intake and graduation by the main levels of education. The flow charts give an integrated picture of the students’ flows between the levels of education and the labor market during a reporting year. They illustrate the transition of persons from one level of education to another – a higher one – immediately (i.e. within a reporting year), the transition of youth from educational institutions to the labor market and the flows of persons returning to the educational system after some time. The development of very detailed student flow charts is an important stage in the assessment of educational institutions’ needs in financial resources, including the budgetary ones. Understanding not only the quantity demanded, but also the structure of the demand for education by the levels of education allows to plan the intake in educational organizations and consequently national budget expenditures on education more exactly. The information on the number of persons who leave educational institutions before completing the corresponding programmes may be a measure of losses from wasted investments in education. The structures of intake and graduation reflect the proportion of the demand by the levels of education. Changes in these structures for some period of time are of the utmost interest as analyzing them one can trace the educational trajectories and thus catch indirectly changes in students’ preferences.

In this bulletin the description of students’ educational trajectories is based upon the data of the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation that, in spite of a certain conditionality, are reliable and reflect correctly the contingent of the Russian educational system and its movements. This direction is actively developed in the framework of the Monitoring of education markets and organizations: a methodology of student flows estimation using federal state statistics was proposed and published in 2010. This methodology is being constantly improved and adjusted to the transformations that follow the changes in federal statistical observation of educational institutions’ activities.

The evaluation of financial flows in the educational system is also one of the most important tasks resolved in the framework of the Monitoring of education markets and organizations. This bulletin presents the data on the financial flows within the public educational institutions. The financing of private educational institutions constitutes not more than 5% of the total financing of educational institutions and it is not considered in the bulletin.

The main financial flows in public educational institutions are the resources provided by the budgetary system of Russia and also by the population. The information on the flows of budgetary resources within the educational system is currently available in state budget execution reports; it is given in the bulletin with the purpose of presenting the overall pattern of financial flows in the public education sector, whereas the main attention is paid to evaluating the flows of resources coming to educational institutions from households.

The evaluation of the amount of resources spent on education by the population is performed using the specially designed and conducted sample surveys of households with children attending preschool educational institutions and schools as well as the youth studying under professional educational programmes of different levels.

The topicality of performing the evaluation of private financial flows is stipulated by a number of circumstances. The analytical support for decision-making in the framework of the state policy in education demands a permanent monitoring of the financial provision and financial stability of educational institutions. Measures of the state policy related with introducing the Unified State Examination, the granting of the status of autonomous institutions to a number of institutions, the transition of educational institutions to the per capita normative financing on a mass scale, etc. contribute to the redistribution of financial flows between the public financing and private financing, between the levels of education and finally between educational institutions. The monitoring of corresponding changes is a prerequisite for adopting effective solutions of the state policy in the education sector.

The long-term and modular character of the Monitoring of education markets and organizations allows for retaining unchanged the methodology of collecting the data on key indicators required for an assessment of private resources in the educational system. This feature makes the data obtained within the Monitoring of education markets and organizations a unique source of comparable in time data series of households’ financial expenditures on education. Meanwhile the data collected make it possible to take into account a number of actual financial flows that are not covered by the official statistics (e.g., expenses on the services of private tutors).

 

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No. 1 (55), 2012
"Information and Communication Technologies in the Russian Professional Education System"

Authors: G. Abdrakhmanova, G. Kovaleva

Professional communities, the state and the public as a whole acknowledge the advantages of adopting the information and communication technologies (ICT) in the educational process, the use of Internet as a source of diverse knowledge and as a means of communication between teachers, students and their parents. The computer literacy and Internet literacy are considered to be one of the main criteria when assessing not only the educational level but also the level of the social and economic development of a country as a whole.

The adoption and effective use of the novel information services, educational systems and technologies, electronic educational resources of the new generation are defined as one of the final outcomes of implementing the measures specified in the Federal Goal-oriented Education Development Programme for the period of 2011-2015 (hereinafter referred to as the Programme).

Basing on the data of Monitoring of education markets and organizations and the federal statistical surveys authors analyze the ICT usage in the professional education system, the level of e-skills f students and teachers, the digital inequality of educational institutions by education levels and by the regions of the Russian Federation. This allows to specify the problems of adopting novel technologies in education. The information bulletin presents the methodological approaches applied in studying the ICT usage in the professional education and its data base. An economic and statistical analysis of the main indicators is also given.

The system of indicators that was designed for the purpose of conducting a detailed survey covers the most important directions of research: availability and quality of ICT equipment, Internet access, software; the ICT usingby teachers and students; distant educational technologies; using of a website for presenting information on the educational and financial activities of an institution.

In accordance with the priority direction of the state policy in the field of professional education, that is its quality increasing, the most important outcomes of the ICT usage by educational institutions must be:
– training of citizens to be prepared for life and work in the contemporary information society by developing the necessary e-skills;
– increasing the quality of training based upon the ICT usage;
– increasing the accessibility of modern education including distance learning for various population groups and providing equal educational opportunities.

These results can be achieved first owing to a well-developed ICT infrastructure, the adoption of novel ICT based means and forms of instruction in the educational process, a high level of e-skills of students and teachers. In order to assess the course of the implementation of state policy measures in this sphere the main directions of the statistical survey of the ICT application in the professional education were specified as follows:
– availability educational institutions with modern ICT equipment, Internet access, and software;
– the ICT using by students and teachers;
– implementing novel educational methods and forms that are designed based upon the ICT;
– assessing the barriers to the ICT usage.

The results of the analysis show that the ICT have occupied a strong position in the educational and administrative activities of professional education institutions. Yet the task of development of the ICT infrastructure is still topical (as the availability of modern ICT in institutions is significantly lower than that in the countries with a well-developed ICT infrastructure, as the gap of availability of PCs and Internet access for students is still considerably by the regions of the Russian Federation and types of educational institutions. The assessments of the level of the ICT accessibility and quality given by the institutions’ management also confirm that it is yet early to say that the formation of the ICT infrastructure in the professional education system have been completed.

It is necessary to realize that implementing the ICT is not a one-time campaign. The need to improve the technical infrastructure is stipulated not only by the level of its current condition but also by the ICT as such due to their dynamic development and the emergence of novel forms and possibilities of their usage.


 

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