WASHINGTON, December 6 (RIA Novosti, Alexei Berezin) - Russia's education minister has served up some stern words about falling standards in higher education and corruption within institutions.
While talking to journalists in the U.S. capital on Monday evening, Andrei Fursenko said the quality of education in Russian higher education establishments had declined and the number of specialists graduating with the appropriate level of knowledge had fallen.
The minister continued that university heads estimated that only 10-20% of higher education establishments provided the proper level of education that had once made Russia proud.
"Education plays an important social role and people raise their status," Fursenko said. "However, the real high quality has been lost and lost very seriously."
In highly critical comments, the minister said the problem was that some students wanted to receive a diploma without doing any studying. He said that meant students attended an institute or a university for a typical five-year course and paid to receive a document in the end.
Bribery within education institutions is known to be a problem in Russia, and Fursenko said tighter controls over final graduation exams, a "real fight against corruption", would be one way to tackle the decline in standards.
