                         EDUCATION IN RUSSIA

 Secondary education is mandatory in Russia. Children start school at the
age of 6 and finish at 17 . As a rule, a child attends the school located
in the neighborhood,the one which is the closes to home . However , there
in  big cities there are also so-called "special" schools , offering more
in-depth  studies of the major European  languages ( English , French, or  
German), or the advanced courses in physics and mathematics, and children
attending one of these may have to commute from home. There are no school
buses in Russia.
 The first stage of education is elementary school for grades 1 through 4.
The  second  is secondary school for grades 5 through 9 . Upon graduation
from secondary school ( which  is  not the equivalent of having completed
their  secondary  education ) , students  are  given the choice of either 
continuing to attend the same school (high school; grades 10 and 11 ), or
entering a vocational school or trade school. Both vocational school  and 
trade schools are meant to  provide  one , long  with  the certificate of
secondary  education, with a number of useful skills ( e.g. , those of an 
electrician, technical, or computer operator ).One attends the former for
two years, and the latter for three or four.
 Haveing completed one's secondary education, one can either become  part
of work force or go on to college ( " institution of higher learning " ).
There are universityes and so-called "institutes" in Russian . The former
stress  a more teoretical , fundamental approach to education , while the 
latter are more practice oriented.
 There are no medical  schools  or  departments with in the  structure of
Russian universitys . Future doctors attend medical institutes. There are 
no  degrees  in   Russian  equivalent to those of bachelor's or master's.
Students  spend  approximately  five years in college or six in a medical
institute.
 To be admited to an institution of higher learning , one has to  pass  a 
series of oral and written tests. Grades in the certificate of  secondary
education are also taken account.
 Entry to higher education is quite competitive. Some college departments
( philologist,foreign languages-especially English,law, journalism ) have
dozens of applicants for one prospective student's position. The same  is
true of medical and theatre institutes.
 Up to the present, neither college students nor schoolchildren have  had
any  say  in  the  selection  of  courses they had to take. Everyone  has 
studied  according  to  uniform  series  of  guide  lines approved by the
Ministery  of  Higher  Education . Evidently , this situation is going to 
change in the near future.
 Education in Russian has until recently been free on all levels. College
students  with  good  grades  were  rewarded  with a modest stipend . All
institutions  of  higher learning were subsidized by the government . Now
that  the  country  is  changing to a market-place economy, the system of
education  is  also bound to undergo profound changes . The first private
scholls , gymnasiums and lycees, have already been founded in  Moscow and
St. Petersburg , in  an  attempt  to  revive the pre-1917 traditionals of 
Russian educational system with its high standards of excellence.

 










