Availability of education as a determinant for public assessment of the state of national system of education

Abstract

This article analyzes the data of international sociological project – “European Social Research”. Availability of education is viewed as a determinant for public assessment of the state of national system of education. One of the potential indicators of availability of education is a subjective assessment of the presence of equal chances for receiving the desired level of education among residents of the country. Special attention is paid to comparison of assessments given by the Russian and residents of other European countries. The author underlines the importance of carrying out surveys on this topic, as a feedback channel, which allows determining public assessment of the effectiveness of reforms conducted in educational sphere. It is noted that European countries greatly differ depending on the public assessment of the national system of education. The Russians rate the state of national system of education lower than other countries participating in the project. It is concluded that the Russian system of education does not fully meet the demands and requests of the population. The author determines that comparing to the majority of European countries, availability of education in the Russian Federation receives relatively low ratings of the Russians. Since in in participating countries, availability of education is a determinant of public assessment of the state of national system of education, it is claimed that the higher is the subjective assessment, the more positive is the assessment of the state of national system of education overall. In Russia, the established correlation on the European scale is relatively strong, which testifies to the fact that availability of education comes to the forefront among the problems of national system of education.