Sergei Sobyanin approves the priorities for the development of Moscow’s education system
The Presidium of the Moscow City Government considered the issue of priorities for the development of the education system in the capital for 2025. Based on its results Sergei Sobyanin decided to increase the per capita funding standard for general education schools to improve the quality of education, and also to allocate equal funding for the 5-11th grades. In addition, a decision was made to develop the system of mathematics and science training for schoolchildren, and to increase the number of budget-funded places in colleges for those leaving Moscow schools after the ninth grade in order to support the growing interest in secondary vocational education. 46 billion rubles will be allocated for these purposes. Five cutting-edge schools of the future will also be built in the capital.
The capital is among the world’s top five cities in terms of the quality of school education. The decisions taken will allow the city to maintain and improve this position, and will also ensure the competitiveness of Moscow school leavers at a time when the labor market is undergoing a transformation and digital technologies are developing rapidly.
Increased funding and regulations
In 2025, an additional 46 billion rubles will be added to finance Moscow education. This will represent a 13% increase in schools’ funding.
The good results and success of students in high school, college and higher education largely depend on the provision of basic fundamental education in elementary schools and in the fifth—ninth grades, because it is during this period that child’s interest in learning is established and their talents and abilities are revealed. Therefore, it is important today to pay the same attention to elementary and primary schools as to high schools. This will be an important factor in the continued growth in the quality of education and student success in Moscow.
The Moscow City Government has therefore decided to introduce a single high funding standard for grades 5-11 instead of two different levels for middle and high school, and also to increase its amount. The new standard will be 197,000 rubles a year per pupil.
In elementary school (fifth to ninth grades), the funding standard will increase by nearly 20 percent, and for grades 10 through 11, it will increase by 5.4 percent. The per capita funding standard for elementary school (first—fourth grades) will increase by almost 15.7 percent, to 171,000 rubles per year.
Strengthening science and math in schools
In addition, the additional budgetary funds will be used to improve the quality of schoolpupils’ math and science training, which plays a decisive role in Moscow’s technological leadership.
From the 2025/2026 school year, schools will offer citywide math, science and technology courses for pupils from the first through sixth grades. The children will solve creative problems, developing logic, spatial and analytical thinking. There will also be new city Olympiads, including experimental competitions, which will help with the early identification of children’s talents and the subsequent provision of individual support to the pupils. Already in April next year, at the Olympiad “Ready for life in a smart city,” third and fourth grade pupils will be able to demonstrate the skills acquired in the additional classes.
These sessions will also require more advanced teacher training and new skills. From April 1 this year, teachers will be able to take special courses as part of a new system of training and professional development.
The decision to develop additional courses for schoolchildren was made in view of the growing interest of school pupils in mathematics and science education. In 2025, a record 60 percent of eleventh-graders—more than 32 thousand school leavers—will take applied mathematics in the Unified State Exams.
Over the past five years, interest in computer science has grown by 46 percent, with 16,000 people taking the exam this year. In addition, for the first time in the last few years, physics was among the most popular subjects—it was chosen by more than 10,000 final year pupils.
Building schools of the future and renewing educational infrastructure
The systemic development of education is impossible without the creation of a high-quality educational environment. An unprecedented project to upgrade school infrastructure and facilities has been launched in the capital.
In 2024, a large-scale program, My School, was launched. As part of the program up to 100 school buildings are to be upgraded each year. The first four buildings are now open following their renovation. About 50 schools in Moscow will be modernized by the beginning of the new school year. More than 35,000 children will study in modern, comfortable and high-tech classrooms.
The city is also continuing to construct new school buildings. For example, it has been decided to create five advanced schools of the future in the Presnensky, Meshchansky, Basmanny and Tagansky districts. The new educational buildings will be built according to innovative standards, including the creation of comfortable spaces for scientific experiments, group and individual work, exhibition areas for projects, a media library with an atrium and recreational areas. Special attention will be paid to creating visually uncluttered spaces and filling the rooms with light.
By 2032, approximately a thousand school buildings will have been constructed or modernized in the capital.
Expanding the choice of learning pathways for young people
The most important task in the sphere of education is to provide young people with the widest possible choice of learning options in accordance with the interests and talents of each student.
Students who continue their studies in grades 10-11 study at least two subjects in depth in order to better prepare for university entrance. The capital’s standard for pre-professional education, which is built on the model of school—college—university—enterprise, has proved its effectiveness.
Traditionally, at the end of ninth grade, many school leavers choose to continue their studies in colleges, which allows them to train in a profession that is in demand and start an independent life without delay. More than 75 percent of vacancies in the Moscow labor market are focused on specialists with secondary vocational education. 95 percent of those qualifying from of city colleges find work in their field of study.
In the 2024 admissions period, ninth graders showed an increased in secondary vocational education. The allotted 16,000 additional vocational training places were 100 percent filled. Twice as many ninth-graders became college students—about 36,000 in total.
Among the fields in highest demand are information technologies and programming, graphic design, catering and confectionery, and tourism and hospitality. The demand for candidates with vocational training in finance and trade and in the education and social spheres is growing.
Taking into account this trend, in 2025 the Moscow City Government decided to increase the number of budget-funded places in the city colleges for ninth grade graduates to meet this demand.
In 2023, the city launched a program of measures to modernize and systematically develop the secondary vocational education system. The program is based on two basic principles:
- relevance and demand (educational programs are developed with the direct participation of employers and professional associations);
- a practice-oriented approach (students are immersed in a professional environment from their first year of college, and practical training makes up at least 70 percent of the total study time and is conducted under the guidance of experienced mentors and masters qualified to provide industrial training).
One of the key factors driving the changes is constant interaction with employers, and working to meet their demands. Today the city’s colleges have more than three thousand partners from all sectors of the economy.
Another important aspect of the modernization of secondary vocational education in Moscow is the large-scale re-equipment of colleges. More than two thousand laboratories and workshops are to be upgraded or renovated over the next few years. This will allow the students to carry out practical and laboratory work at a modern technological level with the same equipment used by Moscow enterprises.
Three flagship centers for practical training will also appear in modern production facilities. One of them, located in the Rudnevo industrial park, was opened in October 2024.
The plan is to build seven innovative educational campuses with a total area of over 400,000 square meters to accommodate over 60,000 students by 2031. These include colleges specializing in the creative industries, information technology, health care, hospitality, manufacturing, transportation and construction, among other areas.