Inequality in education. Only accessible education will make Russia a strong state. Problems of accessibility of quality education in rural areas Problems of accessibility of higher education for the rural population
The general socio-economic and demographic situation in the republic has recently led to an exacerbation of problems of access to quality education and subsequent employment of young people living in rural areas.
They say and write a lot about rural schools. The content of both scientific works and pseudo-scientific studies of the network of rural secondary schools is far from clear. However, events in our republic are inexorably developing in the direction that schools are being cut. The economy must be economical, and the costs of maintaining rural schools are considered ineffective.
Optimization of rural schools in order to develop education in rural areas and create conditions for ensuring accessibility and high quality of rural education is one of the priority areas for modernizing education in the PMR. From the analytical reports of the heads of rural schools it follows that, thanks to the opening of specialized classes, over the past two years the quality of education of graduates has improved, and the percentage of admission to higher and secondary vocational educational institutions has increased. But, as school directors note, the vast majority of rural school graduates who enter universities do not return to their native village. Therefore, no matter how paradoxical it may seem, more accessible higher education contributes to the fact that the village remains without an influx of young personnel.
The main problem of rural society: lack of life prospects
for most village residents. Depression and the burden of collapsed economic problems isolate the family, leaving it alone with its troubles. There is a sharp decline in the living standards of many families, a deterioration in the social well-being of adolescents and young people, and parents with minor children. The consequence is the collapse of spiritual values, manifested in the loss of ideals, confusion, pessimism, crisis of self-realization, lack of trust in older generations and official government structures, which gives rise to legal nihilism. But at the same time, the only stable functioning social institution in the village remains the school: “For us, the very presence of a teacher in the village, a rural intellectual who sets the cultural level of the environment, is very important. Remove the teacher from the village and you will get a degraded environment. A rural school, without a doubt, is a means of cultivating the environment and social stability of rural society.”
The rural teacher also finds himself in this same environment of spiritual vacuum. Today there is a need to include in the work of the Pridnestrovian State Institute for Educational Development the most effective of the many ways to preserve teacher culture in rural areas, namely a system of advanced training for teachers on a cumulative basis. Such a system of activities includes:
Systematic seminars with visits to selected general education organizations;
work as part of the teaching staff, ensuring the involvement of rural teachers in the organizational and technological support of seminars at the republican level on an equal basis with representatives of urban general education organizations, organizations of primary and secondary vocational education (conferences, exhibitions, presentations, etc.).
A society under conditions of general modernization requires teenagers to be able to quickly adapt to new conditions of existence. A teacher working in rural conditions faces a problem: how to preserve the moral qualities of a growing person in conditions of fierce market competition, a shift in the value vector of the individual from high ideals to the ideals of material wealth, and profit.
During the school period, children, adolescents, and youth are not consistently included in the sphere of social activity, they do not participate in the discussion of the problems that adults live with - labor, economic, environmental, socio-political, etc. And this leads to infantilism, selfishness, and spiritual emptiness , to acute internal conflict and artificial delay in the personal development of young people, depriving them of the opportunity to take an active social position. The teaching staff considers special forms of school self-government to be the most effective means of forming and developing the active social position of growing village residents. The specificity of these forms is that they combine, on the one hand, the active participation of students in traditional events for our territory (for example, in the days of school self-government), on the other hand, they include them in the social life of their native village. Among the non-traditional means of forming an active life position of growing villagers is the functioning of Children's Services that take part in village gatherings, work organizing creative exhibitions of joint family works of students and their parents, and much more.
Another problem is the failure to take into account the gender, age, individual and other characteristics of students. Not all types of activities organized by rural schools contribute to the development of spiritual culture in children and adolescents. Often the emphasis is on the quality of knowledge, rather than on the mental and spiritual development of schoolchildren. However, teachers of rural educational organizations initiating modernization processes note a number of important aspects:
- · the school, being in most cases the only cultural center of the village, has a significant influence on its development; it is important to establish close interaction between the school and the social environment in order to use its potential in educational work;
- · limited opportunities for self-education for rural schoolchildren,
- · the lack of institutions of additional education, cultural and leisure institutions determines the need to organize the cognitive activities of students during extracurricular hours on the basis of the school and the advisability of using circle and club-type associations for this, which include schoolchildren of different ages, teachers, parents, social partners (representatives of the village administration) depending on their interests and abilities;
- · in a rural school, favorable conditions are created for the use of the surrounding nature, traditions preserved in the village, folk art, and rich spiritual potential in educational work;
- · in the life of a rural schoolchild, labor activity occupies a significant place, which, with irrational organization of changes in the types of activities of a teenager, affects the decrease in the importance of education in general in the village.
Rural teachers admit that the school’s work with families is insufficient, which largely determines the civic passivity of parents in relation to the fate of their children. Unfortunately, at this stage, in most rural general education organizations, work with parents is in the nature of one-time actions. The effectiveness of these events is indisputable, but it is not possible to assess their systemic effectiveness in promoting civic engagement among parents.
It also seems problematic that parents, teachers and educators consider health to be the leading values, while in real life in rural areas, studies note an increase in drug trafficking, smoking, and drunkenness. It seems interesting to develop a value attitude towards the health of future defenders of the Fatherland, which involves organizing a field camp in the summer. The idea of paramilitary camps is certainly not innovative. However, this approach to the conditions, factors, and details of the implementation of this idea makes it truly effective. For the camp director, educators, and leaders of basic military training, each shift in such a camp is a carefully simulated business game. Boys living in a militarized environment learn to act in emergency situations, learn the basics of first aid, and learn interesting information about new military equipment. Feeling the elbow of a friend, realizing their responsibility for his life in an emergency situation, teenagers acquire a different outlook on their own life and health.
Unfortunately, the majority of teachers from rural educational organizations consider their main task to be the transfer of knowledge, skills and abilities to students. However, the question of how to effectively apply the knowledge, skills and abilities acquired at school in life remains for graduates and their parents to decide independently.
One of the most important factors for success in modern life is access to modern information. It is no secret that residents of many rural settlements are deprived of the ability to connect to information networks. This fact causes the greatest damage to that part of the rural population that is capable and ready to educate themselves. The implementation of distance learning becomes impossible.
In overcoming the education crisis in the context of socio-economic changes, we understand that this is only possible on the basis of a detailed strategy that takes into account both the real situation in the field of education, the current trends and relationships, and the individual affairs of each school.
In our time, the educational capabilities of rural society have decreased.
The school becomes the only means of spiritual revival of the village. Of course, one school cannot resolve all crisis situations, but a rural school can help a growing person implement the principle of free civil choice, ready for a reasonable choice of life positions. It is such a graduate who will be successful in life and work.
Problems of accessibility of general education in modern Russia
Problems of access to education concern almost the entire Russian society. These problems are discussed not only by scientists and officials from the education system, but also by teachers and parents. The reason is that education is increasingly considered by both the population and the governments of most countries of the world as an important economic resource that ensures successful self-realization, social mobility and the material well-being of the individual in the modern world. At the same time, the requirements that were and are presented to those wishing to receive an education are not always the same, which creates a problem of inequality, primarily associated with the accessibility of education and its quality for people of different socio-economic status, nationality, gender, physical abilities, etc. Principle equality of opportunity in education is about giving everyone, regardless of background, the opportunity to achieve the level that best matches their potential. Lack of equal access to education effectively perpetuates economic, social and cultural inequalities, preventing children from moving from the bottom to the top. There are several concepts of unequal access to education. This is legal inequality, which is considered as inequality of rights enshrined in law and socio-economic inequality caused by the socio-economic characteristics of various population groups.
The right to education (along with the right to vote) is one of the freedoms for which all peoples of the world have fought throughout their history. The right to education is enshrined in the International Convention on the Rights of the Child. In European countries, the right to education is part of the value system of a modern democratic state. Mass public schooling has become a fundamental condition for ensuring social justice, national prosperity, economic and social progress in society.
According to Russian legislation (Article 43 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation), the state guarantees citizens universal access and free primary general, basic general, as well as secondary (complete) general education in state and municipal educational institutions within the limits of state educational standards. Formally, these guarantees are observed. According to the 2002 All-Russian Population Census, the proportion of children aged 10–14 years studying in general education institutions in cities and towns was 97.4%, and in rural areas – 97.9%. The proportion of the illiterate population aged 10 years or more in 2002 was 0.5%. These indicators indicate a fairly high degree of accessibility to education in the Russian Federation. For comparison: in India, the enrollment rate for children of the age in question is 65%, in China - 80.7%, in Canada - 97.2%, in the UK - 98.9%, in the USA - 99.8%, in France and in Australia - 100%. Structural changes in the political and economic life of Russia in the 1990s. affected all spheres of state activity, not leaving aside the sphere of education. The transformation of the country's economic structure has led to a change in the structure of demand for educational services. In recent years, demand for higher education services has increased significantly, which was accompanied by a reciprocal increase in supply. Both according to sociological surveys and statistics, the volume of educational services provided is expanding. The number of universities increased by 108%: from 514 in 1990 to 1068 in 2005 (of which 615 are government institutions and 413 are non-state institutions). The number and enrollment of students increased by 150% over the same period. These trends are typical for both state and non-state universities, and non-state universities have developed even more actively. The number of students studying on a paid basis at universities of various forms of ownership is increasing. In the 2004/2005 academic year, more than half (56%) of students studied on a paid basis (in the 1995/1996 academic year this figure was only 13%). Based on the above, one could draw an optimistic conclusion that education in Russia has become more accessible and in demand in recent years. In terms of the share of people with higher and postgraduate professional education in the economically active population, Russia is in third place after Norway and the United States; in Russia this figure is 22. 3, in Norway and the USA - 27.9.
For Russia, experts note discrepancies between the declared goals and real facts, indicating the inability of the education system to meet these goals. The formation of the economy of the new Russia was accompanied by a sharp and significant reduction in government spending on education. This led to the degradation of institutions at all levels of education. The deterioration of the material and technical base and human resources had a negative impact on the accessibility and quality of education.
The Russian education system does not ensure social mobility of the population, there are no conditions for an “equal start”, quality education today is virtually inaccessible without connections and/or money, and there is no system of social (grant) support for students from low-income families. The introduction of market relations into the field of education causes a growing degree of inequality among educational institutions, primarily higher education. Political and social changes, the development of democracy create favorable conditions for reforms, including in the field of education, but these same changes cause an increase in corruption, crime and other negative consequences.
The development of the non-state sector in the field of education and the official provision of paid educational services (including the use of paid forms of education in state educational institutions) in the context of ensuring equality and accessibility is ambiguous. In 2006, paid educational services were provided to the population for 189.6 billion rubles, or 10.4% more than in 2005. On the one hand, the development of a system of paid educational services expands access to vocational education through the introduction of paid vocational education, which has brought Russia to one of the leading places in the world in terms of the relative number of students in higher education institutions. But on the other hand, paying for education reduces its accessibility for the poor.
In the context of constant underfunding of the education system and the increase in its fees, the income and disposable resources of parents are a significant factor influencing the accessibility of education for children from different social strata of the population. The subjective side of the problem of accessibility is that almost all social groups are confident that education has become paid. Consequently, in public opinion we have lost one of the most important gains - access to high-quality free education for trained and capable children. Recently, problems associated with obtaining education have become more acute in the public consciousness - people increasingly believe that this important socio-economic resource is becoming less and less accessible. According to VTsIOM surveys conducted in 2007, half of Russians cannot afford paid education, 40% cannot afford paid medicine. In case of emergency, 42% of our fellow citizens will be able to use paid medical services, and 27% will be able to use educational services. Only 16-17% of Russians systematically have the opportunity to pay for such services.
The problem of its availability in modern Russia ceases to be exclusively a problem of socially vulnerable segments of the population; it affects almost the entire population. The social differentiation of modern Russian society creates unequal conditions for the social mobility of young people. The growth of differences in income and material security is inevitable during the transition to a market economy and plays the role of a stimulus for labor and business activity, but in Russia it turned out to be excessive, provoking an increase in social tension in society. The gap between the narrow rich minority and the poor majority grew from 4.5 times in 1990 to 14.5 times in 2003. Due to this factor, youth crime in the country has increased significantly. Young people who saw no other ways to take a place in the sun joined the ranks of criminals. Access to education services should alleviate the problem of poverty. The goal of equal access to education in the development of the modern Russian education system, despite the general increase in the educational level of the population, has not yet been implemented in practice.
We can say that, in fact, the public education system is developing in such a way that it ensures the reproduction and even strengthening of social imbalances in society. This inequality arises at the level of preschool education and subsequently persists and intensifies at all further stages of education.
In the course of monitoring the economics of education in the Russian Federation, estimates of the population's funds entering the system of general and vocational education were obtained. Analysis of family expenses, which include officially unregistered expenses, makes it possible to assess the processes leading to inefficient use of resources in the education system. Research results demonstrate how social inequality manifests itself in school and then in vocational education. This is most clearly manifested in the system of higher education, as the most competitive area, which accumulates all the shortcomings and problems of previous educational levels, and subsequently leads to deepening social differentiation and creates the preconditions for its reproduction.
The constitutional guarantees of providing all children of our country with free general education are mainly implemented in practice. However, parents who have a strong desire for their children to receive higher professional education and further social growth prefer, from the first grade, to send their child not to just any school, but only to a good school that provides a high level of socialization, i.e., the sum of knowledge, skills and target settings.
Unfortunately, schools of this kind are a scarce resource (the demand for high-quality general education services from the population exceeds the supply of these services by general education institutions). Therefore, children are admitted to them mainly on a competitive basis. The competition is a special filter at the transition stage “kindergarten - primary school” and is ideally designed to provide access to quality education for the most gifted children. In reality, the competition for access to a scarce resource involves not only the child’s abilities, but also the “advantages” of his parents - their high position in society or a high level of material well-being, combined with a willingness to use one or the other for the benefit of the school or its administration. This circumstance has an objective economic basis. A shortage of a good on the market due to the fact that the official price for it is lower than the equilibrium market price always leads to the emergence of a parallel existing “shadow” market for the good in question and the formation in this market of a “shadow” price higher than the officially established one.
Thus, despite the formal availability of general education in Russia, there is inequality of opportunities in obtaining high-quality school education, due to the socio-economic stratification of society. The main danger of this phenomenon is that, arising at the preschool filter stage, it can be preserved and subsequently reproduced at all further stages of education.
To estimate the expenses of Russian households associated with preparing a child for school and his enrollment in school, we use data from a representative survey of the Public Opinion Foundation conducted in 2004. As mentioned above, about 25% of families with preschool children of the appropriate age bear these types of costs. At the same time, approximately 21% of households purchase books, stationery and other supplies needed for school. The expenses of Muscovites in this case are 3,200 rubles per year, the expenses of a non-Moscow family are 1,300 rubles per year. Another 2.4% of families spend money on the necessary medical examination of the child (1,900 and 300 rubles, respectively); 0.3% of respondents pay for testing or an entrance exam to school (1,500 and 500 rubles, respectively).
As the child grows up, parents begin to seriously think about which school to send him to. Let's consider some of the results of a sociological survey of parents of preschool children, conducted in 2003 in 4 pilot regions. It is characteristic that if for children under 3 years of age about 30% of the parents surveyed say something definite about the characteristics of the school, then for children over 5 years of age almost 100% of parents already express their preferences. Moreover, if for parents of younger children only such characteristics of the school as a convenient location and good teachers are important, then for parents of children in the older age category, the opportunity to enter a good university after this school begins to acquire almost the same importance.
The territorial factor influencing the accessibility of quality education plays an important role. The existing economic differentiation between large cities (primarily Moscow) and regions, with limited mobility, leads to inequality in access to education. Many Moscow families begin to build educational strategies for their children from a very early age. 17% of capital residents invest in their child’s educational preparation for school. Of these, 12% pay official fees to various educational institutions (an average of 5,500 rubles per year) and 5% pay for the services of private teachers (an average of 9,400 rubles per year). In other regions of Russia, only 8.2% of respondents make similar investments. Of these, 6.7% pay official fees to various educational institutions (an average of 2,200 rubles per year) and 1.5% pay for the services of private teachers (an average of 3,200 rubles per year). Analyzing this segment of the educational services market, it should be noted that in the capital there is not only more demand for the services in question. Compared to other regions, their offer is larger and more diverse.
As it turned out during the survey, some of the parents (3.4% in Moscow and 1.2% in Russia) pay an official entrance fee when their child enters school. In the regions it is quite insignificant - 400 rubles, in Moscow it is significantly higher - 12,300 rubles. The practice of bribes and gifts for admission of a child to a good school continues, as such schools are becoming an increasingly scarce resource. According to indirect estimates, 8.7% of Moscow families and 1.7% of other Russians gave bribes for admitting a child to a school educational institution during the school year. At the same time, the average bribe for Muscovites was 24,500 rubles, and for residents of other regions – 6,600 rubles. Almost half of families (45%) are aware of the practice of informal payments for a child’s admission to a good school. Most of those who are familiar with this practice are in Moscow and St. Petersburg (67%). In small towns the share of such families is 40%, and in villages – 27%. From 40 to 50 percent of families are ready to pay in order for their child to enroll in a good school, while the shares of those who are “rather ready” in different types of settlements are almost the same, and the share of those “definitely ready” in Moscow and St. Petersburg is doubled higher than in villages (30% versus 15%, respectively)
In Russian general education institutions in 2003, the number of students per 1 personal computer was 46 people. And for 1 personal computer with Internet access, there were 400-440 schoolchildren. The PISA results, which are unpleasant for our national self-awareness, are explained, in particular, by this lag in the field of modern educational technologies.
In 2003, during a sociological survey of teachers in 4 “pilot” regions, the degree of provision of teaching staff with the subjects necessary for work was studied. As follows from the teachers' answers, the provision of the educational process in general education institutions with the necessary means for normal work is insufficient. The most scarce resource is free Internet access: on average, 16% of the surveyed teachers are provided with it. Only 30% of respondents receive computer floppy disks and office supplies (notebooks, pens, etc.) at their place of work. But teachers need fountain pens every day to check students’ homework and give grades. Only half of teachers are provided with computers and professional literature at their place of work; 40% of the teachers surveyed are not provided with textbooks.
Moscow school teachers are best provided with the supplies necessary for work. In other regions, no significant differences are observed. Noteworthy is the fact that for most items the level of provision in rural schools is higher than the average for all types of schools. Apparently, this is explained by the fact that the total number of teachers in rural schools is significantly less than in urban ones. Therefore, each rural teacher receives a larger number of textbooks, stationery and copies of professional literature provided by the institution.
Only 20% of the teachers surveyed did not buy things necessary for work with their own money. The percentage of purchases of computer equipment and related products (floppy disks, CDs, Internet cards) is very small - from 2 to 13%. Combined with an insufficient level of provision of information resources at the place of work, this is an alarming symptom, signaling the unpreparedness of at least half of the teaching corps to teach schoolchildren in accordance with the requirements of modern information technologies. The reasons for this are the lack of computer literacy among many teachers (especially older ones), as well as the lack of financial resources from schools and teachers themselves to purchase modern office equipment (computers, printers), the cost of which is not comparable to the average salary of a school teacher. Most often, school teachers purchase stationery, professional literature and textbooks, spending almost 2/3 of their salary at their main place of work on this.
We have already mentioned above the existing trend towards a decline in the quality of general education in Russia. One of the reasons explaining this trend is the low level of wages. Although in recent years there has been a significant increase in the wages of school employees, it still remains quite low.
Low wages force teachers to look for additional sources of income. For the majority, this is either working in another institution, or tutoring, or sometimes increasing the workload by combining subjects. Then what quality preparation of schoolchildren for life in society, about mastering professional educational programs can we talk about if the majority of the teaching staff increases their income by increasing their working hours?
Consequently, today there is a developing trend of turning a school teacher into a technical school teacher, since he is increasingly becoming only a translator of a certain set of knowledge, gradually losing the educational function necessary for primary and secondary schools. Finally, more than 40% of part-time teachers give private lessons. Tutoring is another way to increase the monetary income of school teachers.
According to the results of a sociological survey of teachers in 6 pilot regions, conducted in 2004, the average salary of a school teacher at his main place of work is almost 9,300 rubles per month in Moscow, about 3,900 rubles in the regions, approximately 3,700 rubles in incomplete and rural schools. Thus, in 2004, teachers' salaries increased compared to 2003. 36% of teachers work part-time, most often through private tutoring. This additional work makes it possible to earn about 6,800 rubles per month in Moscow and 2,200 rubles in the regions. Employees of rural schools have the least amount of additional income (10%) and the least amount (600 rubles per month).
Uncompetitive income levels lead to an aging teaching staff. According to sociological surveys in pilot regions, the average age of teachers is 41-43 years. According to state statistics, in 2003, among 5th grade teachers, 15.7% were people over working age. Among teachers in grades 1-4, teachers over working age accounted for 10%. There are practically no young people in the system of general education institutions. The school is supported by middle-aged and retired teachers, as a result of which there is a certain conservatism in the knowledge of schoolchildren. Young professionals do not go to school to work. In the labor market in the education sector, there is a steady trend towards an outflow of workers from the industry.
The low level of income of employees of educational institutions gives rise to the practice of unofficial payments and gifts. Corruption relations in the school education system distort signals in the educational services market. An analysis of the monitoring results showed that approximately every thirtieth family in Russia (except Moscow) and approximately every twentieth family in Moscow unofficially paid at school for special treatment of their child. Underfunding of school teachers and their low motivation lead to the fact that there is no one to deal with the moral education of the younger generation.
The deterioration in the quality of the material and technical base and staffing of the general education system is largely a consequence of the insufficiency of its budget funding. Budget expenditures per student in the general education system in 2004 amounted to 16.65 thousand rubles.
Budget funds received by general education institutions account for approximately 50% of all budget expenditures on the educational system. At the same time, general education is almost entirely financed from the budgets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and local budgets. Expenditures on general education institutions from the consolidated budget amounted to 1.8% of the country's gross domestic product in 2004 and 1.5% of GDP in 2000. The share of budget expenditures on general education in the total volume of budget expenditures of the Russian Federation in 2004 was equal to 6.4% compared to 6% in 2003. But speaking about budget expenditures, it should be said that visible growth is not a qualitative indicator of an improvement in the situation with the financing of the general education system, since in real terms the volume of invested funds has remained almost unchanged. During the period under review, the Russian economy experienced fairly high inflation rates.
In addition, the volume of public funds flowing into the general education system is not always used effectively. For example, computerization and Internet connection of rural schools will not be used properly without appropriate qualified service. It is clear that each such school will require an increase in staff, and therefore a significant increase in costs. To attract qualified specialists to rural schools, it is necessary not only to pay high wages, but also to provide housing and other guarantees of social well-being. And at the moment, budgetary capabilities do not allow us to properly operate modern technology.
A significant portion of budget funds is allocated to the implementation of programs in high schools, the goals of which are not achieved. The heavy workload required to complete academic programs in high school almost becomes a burden for students. As a result, they ignore courses that are not related to their chosen major. Consequently, public finances are being spent for other purposes. It would be better to increase the efficiency of using budget funds by creating specialized areas in high schools and corresponding redistribution of finances.
Today, given the extreme stratification of property, Russians find themselves unequal, including in the ability to realize the fundamental rights proclaimed by the Constitution, equal for all - to education or medical care.
Thus, the school education market needs regulation - both from the state, and from the professional community, and from consumers. The school system lays the foundation for the overall process of developing future qualifications. And here, from the perspective of the needs of the economy, several general tasks are visible. One of the tasks of the school system is the availability of quality teaching, which in turn must meet the realities of life, modern technology and social needs and which depends on the prestige and status of teaching work, its remuneration, conditions, and the level of training of the teachers themselves. Independent quality control of the services provided is necessary.
Creating a competitive level of wages for workers in this field of education, increasing the authority of teaching, organizing quality control of services, and redistributing resources allocated to the general education system by households and the state will reduce losses to society. If the school continues to develop by inertia, then by 2010 school graduates will receive “pseudo-education,” which will contribute to the further development of corruption. In this case, it will be difficult to talk about ensuring equal access to education based on ability rather than financial opportunity.
Literature:
1. Education in the Russian Federation. Statistical Yearbook. - M.: State University-Higher School of Economics, 200 p.
2. Federal State Statistics Service, 2006
http://www. /scripts/db_inet/dbinet. cgi
3. Monitoring the economics of education. “Social differentiation and educational strategies of students and schoolchildren.” Newsletter No. 6, 2007
4. Economics of education in the mirror of statistics. Information bulletin, No. No. / Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, State University - Higher School of Economics. – M., .
5. Monitoring the economics of education. “Economic strategies of families in the field of children’s education.” Newsletter No. 4, 2007
Studying the problems of accessibility to higher education presupposes, first of all, awareness of the peculiarities of orientations of representatives of the age cohort crossing the “school-university” threshold. We are talking about students receiving secondary education both in general secondary schools and in the system of primary vocational education (SPU) and secondary vocational education (SSUZ), whose average age is 16-17 years. The peculiarity of this study is that the survey managed to cover not only students, but also their parents, who undoubtedly play a big role in the formation of children’s educational plans and their subsequent implementation.
The volume of the sample population covered by the survey is distributed proportionally across territorial-economic regions in accordance with the population density representing the age cohort of interest to us. The sample population is 1,400 students and 1,400 parents of these students and covers 18 constituent entities of the Russian Federation. 79.6% of the sample falls on the urban population (2 megacities - Moscow and St. Petersburg), regional and district centers). 20.4% of the sample population is represented by the rural population. 43.2% of respondents are boys and 56.8% are girls. The survey was carried out in April 2003.
So, in the course of the study, it was possible to identify the main socio-economic and institutional factors that mediate the formation of youth orientations towards obtaining higher education. These include: type of educational institution (secondary school, secondary school, secondary school), social and professional status of parents (including level of education), family income and place of residence of the graduate.
In general, none of the above factors, taken individually, is decisive in the formation of orientations towards obtaining higher education, but together they give a cumulative effect that determines the motivations and, especially, the practice of accumulating resources for entering a university that accompany these motivations.
The nature of the relationship between the level of urbanization of a teenager’s place of residence and the formation of orientations toward higher education is changing. The study showed that young people from rural areas strive to obtain higher education to almost the same extent as residents of small and medium-sized cities.
The socio-professional status of the family also does not act as a factor that unambiguously determines orientation towards obtaining higher education. According to the data obtained during the study, a certain number of those who do not plan to receive higher education are found both among children from families of the business class and among the children of executives. At the same time, orientation towards obtaining higher education is widespread both in working families and in families of employees without higher education.
The role of family cultural capital in shaping orientations toward higher education is high. Among graduates of different types of educational institutions (including SPU), those whose parents (or one of them) have a higher education express their intentions to enter universities most intensively. At the same time, people from low-educated families are expressing their views on higher education en masse.
The economic factor, of course, is today the main source of unequal access to higher education. These studies have shown that insufficient material and financial resources of the family are most often cited as motivations for refusing to obtain higher education, as well as reasons explaining the difficulties and obstacles standing in the way of access to higher education. At the same time, against the backdrop of such a high importance of the material factor, another significant regulator was discovered that determines the attitude towards the accessibility of higher education. Thus, the respondents clearly understand that the main and main type of resources that determine the accessibility of higher education, along with financial capabilities, remains intellectual capital and accumulated knowledge: lack of abilities, reluctance to learn, and low performance are named by respondents as the leading reasons limiting the accessibility of higher education.
If institutional differences between secondary schools, secondary educational institutions and secondary educational institutions act as one of the leading factors determining orientations towards higher education, then its role is not as radical as one might assume. Not only secondary school graduates, but also graduates of secondary educational institutions and secondary educational institutions in large numbers, although in different proportions, highly appreciate the importance of higher education and express intentions to receive it.
The study also found that the awareness of the need to pay for education is already quite firmly rooted in large sections of the population. However, regardless of income level, most families focus primarily on the possibility of their children enrolling in a budgetary department, and consider tuition fees as a backup option for obtaining higher education. Under these conditions, even families with a low level of financial security agree to pay for education. Here, the fee acts as a compensatory mechanism, in a unique way equalizing the chances of entering a university for those who do not have sufficient educational resources.
The analysis showed that at the level of value judgments regarding the role of higher education, its functions and importance for achieving success in life, the differences between representatives of different socio-professional strata and between students of different types of educational institutions are not fundamental. In general, all groups of respondents (albeit in different proportions) express confidence in the need to obtain higher education and its unconditional value. At the same time, it was discovered that the motivations for obtaining higher education (as well as the orientation itself, as mentioned above) are differentiated depending on the cultural capital of the parents, expressed in the level of their education. The more rooted the values of higher education are in the family, the more definite and consistent the children from these families are in their motivations and orientations towards higher education. An even greater difference between people from highly educated families and families where parents do not have higher education is observed in the practices of accumulating educational resources necessary to successfully overcome the “school-university” threshold.
According to the study, all respondents admit that there is a lot of injustice in access to higher education. Among students, the most intense feelings of injustice are expressed by those who have less accumulated cultural and educational resources and, accordingly, feel less confident in the competition for admission to a university. As for parents, the main factor determining their attitude to the problem of accessibility is the family’s financial security. The less income they have, the more pronounced their sense of injustice and the feeling of the insurmountability of the obstacles facing them. At the same time, an acute sense of injustice regarding the accessibility of higher education, characteristic of all groups of graduates and their parents, does not force them to abandon their orientation towards higher education (among teenagers), the desire to give a higher education to their children and even pay for it (among parents).
Speaking about recommendations for ensuring accessibility of higher education, it is necessary to emphasize that the development of any recommendations and measures in today's situation is burdened by the unpredictability and inconsistency of many processes developing both in the field of education and in society as a whole. In addition, almost always when developing social management measures, one can confidently predict that they will bring ambiguous results, including new contradictions, which, in turn, will require society to work to resolve them.
As our research has shown, orientations towards higher education differ in the degree of motivation, and future applicants themselves differ in their preparedness to fight to overcome the threshold of entry into the higher education system. The contingents of applicants for higher education today are so diverse from a social and cultural point of view, so different in their motivations and their behavior on the threshold of entering the higher education system, that a relatively more adequate response to their requests than today requires further development of the educational sphere to satisfy their needs, including in the direction of pluralization of all types of education, from primary vocational to higher education. Pluralization does not necessarily lead to further social disadvantage for those who are disadvantaged in relation to the sphere of higher education.
On the one hand, many problems of building professional and life careers for young people could be solved in the direction of developing, modernizing and improving the system of primary and secondary vocational education, creating new and more progressive forms of it. Public recognition of the pluralization of professional trajectories, recognition by public opinion of the equality of different types of work activity, instilling respect for careers that are not built on the foundation of higher education - all this could “protect” not only the higher education system itself from a massive influx into it, from unfounded claims, but also for the “random” applicants themselves - from the frustrations and disappointments that await them not only in the event of (often inevitable) failure when entering a university, but also in the process of studying.
On the other hand, taking into account the high prestige of higher education, which is demonstrated by all groups of respondents, it seems advisable to further develop such institutions of post-secondary education that could accept contingents who do not have sufficient funds and time for a long and expensive acquisition of a profession. An example would be the short-term, two-year Institutes of Technology with specific and practical specializations created in France in the 1970s, which, during that period of reforms aimed at bridging the gap between university and life, managed to attract mass contingents of young people who did not have sufficient resources to enter college. “prestigious”, “elite” universities.
The solution to the most pressing problem—improving the quality/efficiency of education—is seen not only in modernizing and improving the education system. Our research has shown that graduates of various types of educational institutions themselves emphasize the importance of such qualities as vocation, abilities, interest in acquiring knowledge, and excellent school performance for successful admission to a university. In the views of young people, such parameters, which are meritocratic in nature, occupy no less (and sometimes more) important place than material factors, connections, acquaintances, and the ability to pay for admission to a university. Modern conditions for the accessibility of higher education are closely intertwined with the material and economic capabilities of families. In this regard, young people who, while studying at a secondary school, secondary school or secondary educational institution, discover special abilities, inclinations, deep motivation in their studies, a desire for knowledge, regardless of the level of school, place of residence, social and financial status of parents, etc. , should become the object of special attention from the education system and the state. Mechanisms for its identification and support can greatly contribute to solving the desired problem of improving the quality/efficiency of higher education in the country.
The solution to many issues related to the accessibility of higher education depends on the solution to more global problems facing the education system as a whole.
Thus, the situation in vocational education cannot be considered today in isolation from the analysis of its institutional structure. There is a process of autonomy of education as a social institution. It manifests itself both at the inter-institutional level (for example, the demands of the labor market in quantitative and qualitative terms often do not correlate with the number of trained specialists, with the knowledge, skills and abilities acquired during training), and at the intra-institutional level (existing branches of education - school, SPU, secondary educational institution and university – today remain separated and hierarchized).
A possible solution to the second problem (it is the one that is directly related to the topic of our research) lies in the creation of sectoral and professional complexes that embody the idea of continuous professional education, in which each branch of education would find its niche and acquire its own, inherent role. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that such a solution to the problem can lead to a limitation of individual freedom of choice, depriving students of the right to make a mistake and, most importantly, the opportunity to correct it.
We cannot ignore the demographic aspect of the problem of accessibility, associated with the decline in the demographic wave that higher education institutions must soon face. This development is of great concern due to the expected decline in the number of applicants to higher education institutions against the backdrop of the increase in the number of higher education institutions in all their forms that have occurred in recent years. Our past research, which was conducted in the 1960s when there was a similar demographic situation, showed that there was no decline in the number of applicants. In addition to high school graduates who entered the year of graduation, those who received secondary education several years earlier and graduates of secondary educational institutions also flocked to universities. As a result, the competitive situation remained at the same level. In the current situation, we can also expect an influx of applicants from these groups. In addition, we can expect an influx of applicants aimed at a second higher education, as well as additional educational services that will allow them to obtain a specialization that is more relevant in the labor market. At the same time, one cannot lose sight of the fact that universities’ concerns about ensuring the required number of students can push the problem of improving quality (in the sense of selecting worthy applicants for higher education) into the background. It should also be taken into account that the education system will be forced to enter into a competitive struggle for youth contingents with other social institutions, such as the production sector and the army, each of which, in its own ways, will “pull back” this small generation.
In general, we can say that the more we try to comprehend and generalize the materials received, the more we come to the conclusion that possible recommendations for equalizing the accessibility of higher education lie not only and not so much in the plane of education itself. Normalizing the socio-economic situation in the country, developing a modern skilled labor market, overcoming the exorbitant wage gap, implementing effective measures to combat unemployment, carrying out a full-fledged reform of the army - only measures of this scale can help equalize the accessibility of higher education for all groups of the population.
I also break spears here. The majority of the population (according to the results of a study by A.G. Levinson) continues to believe that education, including higher education, should be free. But in fact, more than 46% of the total number of students in state universities already pays. Today, 57% are studying in their first year at state universities on a paid basis. If we take into account the contingent of non-state universities, it turns out that in Russia currently every second student pays for higher education (in fact, 56% of Russian students already study on a paid basis). At the same time, the cost of training, both in the state and non-state sectors of higher education, is constantly growing.
Already in 2003, tuition fees at state universities exceeded tuition fees at non-state universities. At prestigious higher education institutions, tuition fees can exceed the average by 2-10 times, depending on the type of university and specialty, as well as the location of the institution.
Families spend significant amounts of money not only on studying at a university, but also on entering higher education. According to sociological research, families spend about 80 billion rubles on the transition from school to university. This is a lot of money, so changing the rules for admission to universities (for example, introducing a unified state exam - Unified State Exam) will inevitably affect someone's material interests. Of the above amount, the largest share comes from tutoring (approximately 60%). It is unlikely that tutoring in itself can be considered an absolute evil. Firstly, it was, for example, back in Tsarist Russia, was practiced in Soviet times, and has flourished in the present. Secondly, with mass production - and modern education is mass production - the need for individual adjustment of a product or service to the needs of the consumer is inevitable. This is precisely the normal role of a tutor.
But in recent years, for many tutors (although by no means for all), this role has significantly transformed: it began to consist in the fact that the tutor was not so much supposed to teach something as part of the school curriculum, and not even so much to give knowledge in accordance with the requirements are no longer of universities, but of a specific university, how to ensure admission to the chosen university. This meant that payment was taken not for providing knowledge and skills, but for certain information (about the features of exam tasks, for example, or how to solve a specific problem) or even for informal services (trouble, follow up, etc.). Therefore, it became necessary to hire a tutor only and exclusively from the educational institution where the child was going to enroll (this applies both to the provision of some exclusive information and to the provision of informal services). This does not mean that admission to all universities was necessarily associated with tutors or informal relationships, but it became more and more difficult to enter prestigious universities or prestigious specialties without appropriate “support.” In general, the idea began to emerge that a good education at school was no longer enough to enter the university that allowed one to hope for a successful professional career in the future.
Sociological studies have shown that parents are still inclined to believe that “you can study at a well-known university for free, but it is no longer possible to enter it without money.” An alternative to money is connections. In a “regular” university, there may still be enough knowledge itself, but the knowledge itself is already differentiated into just knowledge, and knowledge taking into account the requirements of a “specific university.” And this knowledge can only be provided either by courses at a university or, again, by tutors.
38.4% of applicants focus only on knowledge. At the same time, focusing only on knowledge during admission in this context means that the applicant and his family are not inclined to enter into informal relationships in order to enter a university. But this does not at all indicate that such applicants will not resort to the services of tutors, it’s just that the perception of a tutor in this case is different - this is a person (a teacher or university lecturer, just a certain specialist) who imparts knowledge, and does not “help with admission” .
The focus on knowledge and money and/or connections among 51.2% of applicants indicates that the applicant (his family) believes that knowledge alone may not be enough, and that one must secure himself either with money or connections. In this case, the tutor performs a dual role - he must both teach and provide support to his client upon admission. The forms of this support can be different - from contacting the right people to transferring money. Sometimes, however, a tutor can only teach, and intermediaries for transferring money are sought independently of him. And finally, the third category of applicants openly rely only on money or connections. In this case, a tutor can also be hired, but his payment is the actual mechanism of payment for admission: this is the person who pushes into the university - we are no longer talking about the transfer of knowledge.
The extremely high proportion of those who consider it necessary to use money and connections when entering a university (more than 2/3) indicates that persistent clichés are emerging in public opinion about which university you can enter “without money” and which “only with money or connections.” Accordingly, admission strategies are built, a choice of university is made, and ideas about the accessibility or inaccessibility of higher education among various groups of the population are formed. It is characteristic that the concept of accessibility is increasingly complemented by the words “quality education”. In this context, what is significant is not that higher education has become accessible at all, but that certain segments of it have become even more inaccessible.
career fee education
3. The role of the Unified State Exam in the accessibility of higher education
Because of this, the unified state exam should and will be perceived in society in an extremely ambiguous manner. The idea of the Unified State Exam as a tool for fighting corruption in entrance exams or tutoring (which is far from the same thing) does not exhaust even a small fraction of the understanding (or misunderstanding) of this instrument. When they say that the Unified State Exam increases the accessibility of higher education, then in a situation where it has already become accessible, this statement is of little value. The most important is the answer to the question of who exactly and what kind of education will become available as a result of the introduction of the Unified State Exam. It is obvious that a prestigious education will never be enough for everyone - that’s why it is prestigious (which includes a certain restriction of access). It will also not be possible to create mass good higher education in a short time (and in Russia over 15 years the number of university students has grown 2.4 times). The process of massification of higher education is proceeding in the country at an unprecedentedly rapid pace (similar processes in the republics of the former USSR, as well as other countries with transition economies, have not yet acquired such a scale), and the quality of education in its traditional sense will inevitably fall in these conditions. Therefore, if earlier it was possible to talk about fixing a certain quality and expanding accessibility, now the achieved level of accessibility must be ensured with at least some acceptable quality. Moreover, given the limited budgetary funds and the effective demand of the population, this task cannot be solved simultaneously for the entire higher education system. It would be more practical and fair to legitimize the differentiation of universities, especially since at the moment the fact that they differ in the quality of education is known to everyone. It is the explicit recording of differences in the quality of the educational program that could become the basis for posing the problem of accessibility, since the question would no longer be posed about the accessibility of higher education in general, but in relation to a specific category of higher educational institutions. But to legitimize the differentiation of universities by prestige or the quality of the educational program (which, generally speaking, does not always coincide) means at the same time to legitimize differences in their budget financing. They - these differences - exist today, but they are informal (exclusive). Making them formal and clearly defined means, on the one hand, to consolidate some rules of the game, and on the other, to clearly spell out the responsibilities of those universities that find themselves at the top. In other words, formalization will affect the rights and responsibilities of the parties, but whether the parties are ready for this is a big question. The idea of GIFO - state registered financial obligations - no matter how controversial it may be in itself, this problem allowed us to fix it extremely clearly: many prestigious universities, to which all applicants would come even with the highest category of GIFO - 1st category, would not receive those budget funds that they currently receive. And, besides, it could have turned out that they would have come with lower GIFO categories, which would have jeopardized the financial well-being of these universities.
At the same time, the lack of formalization of differences in the status of universities leads to the fact that teachers of even very prestigious educational institutions receive very small salaries, and tutoring for them becomes an almost obligatory means of remaining to teach at a university. Our calculations show that on average a tutor receives about 100-150 thousand rubles per year. or approximately 8-12 thousand rubles. per month. Considering that the budget salary of even a professor averages 5.5 thousand rubles, we find that the tutoring “add-on” provides an income for a university teacher slightly higher than the average salary in industry or the average salary in an industry such as non-ferrous metallurgy. Naturally, in this sector prices and incomes are extremely differentiated.
If you look at the Unified State Exam problem from these positions, it will appear from a slightly different perspective. Already now, during the experiment on a unified exam, activities have begun
