Russias 15-year-olds ability to use their knowledge and skills

Under Putin, Russia quickly caught up with the OECD average on school skills, but fell back after 2015. Although education is underfunded (see Figure 7), the OECD’s latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey suggests that Russian 15-year-old pupils have maths, reading and science skills very close to the average for OECD countries (see Figure 8) – other assessment programmes such as TIMSS and PIRLS show even better achievements. Moreover, Russian schools score particularly well in terms of inclusiveness: gender, social and migration backgrounds influence educational performance less than in most of the other countries surveyed.