The End of Compulsory Education?

Abstract

This article is inspired by Francis Fukuyama’s book called The End of History and the Last Man. Yet, compulsory education is not regarded as a perfect model here. The existing school education system is unable to offer anything else to improve educational outcomes. The study attempts to analyze the conditions under which compulsory education developed as well as its features that impede the improvement of education quality. An alternative education system should replace compulsory education to reach a higher level of quality. The transition to third-generation education standards may create a situation where a strategic trend for general education in Russia could be finally outlined. The fundamental provisions of the article are mostly expert judgments based on a research into official documents, publications at hand, and personal experience. In addition, the article picks up the discussion on the balance between the goals and outcomes of general education initiated in earlier articles published in Voprosy obrazovaniya [Lebedev 2005; 2009; 2011; 2013].