Russian Youth in the Education System: From Stage to Stage

Abstract

Official statistics from 1995–2016 are used to describe the dynamics of youth obtaining each subsequent level of education, from middle school to college. The following chronological changes are analyzed with regard to the size of different age cohorts: changes in the number of middle and high school graduates (full-time programs) and their distribution among further educational trajectories; changes in the number of entrants to secondary vocational education, separately for skilled and mid-ranking worker programs, and their distribution between the modes of study as well as among the levels of competencies at the admission stage; changes in the number of entrants to full- and part-time higher education programs and their levels of competencies separately for each of the two modes of study. The Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey data is used to analyze the changes of 1995, 2005 and 2015 in the dynamics of the distribution of youth cohorts (ages 20–24 and 25–29) among the levels of education obtained. Academic achievement and mobility between educational trajectories are also discussed.