Quality of Secondary Education in Russia: Between Soviet Legacy and Challenges of Global Competitiveness

Abstract

In this paper we examine determinants of the quality of secondary education for making informed policy decisions at the levels of student / family, school, country's education system institutions and macroeconomic indicators. The quality of education is estimated by the outcomes of the latest round of PISA from 2009 on mathematics and science skills of 15-year old students from 67 countries. After regression analysis for the pool of countries, we estimate the same determinants for Russia in order to reveal in what way the Russian secondary education system is different from other countries, with a special attention paid to possible explanation of a surprisingly different performance of Russian students on TIMSS and PISA tests. We conclude with the discussion of the limitations of analysis based on international tests and possible policy issues related to the factors of quality of secondary education in Russia.