New Delhi: Russia has lost nearly half its schools in the last 25 years, but the classrooms that remain are being given a uniform political curriculum.
The number of schools in the country fell from 68,804 in the 2000-01 academic year to 37,965 in 2025-26, a 45 per cent decline, according to a new statistical report by the Higher School of Economics (HSE) cited by Euronews. The fall has been far steeper than the decline in the number of school-age children, which dropped by about 14 per cent, from 20.5 million to 17.7 million over the same period.
The biggest losses have been in rural Russia. The number of state and municipal schools in rural areas fell from 45,475 in 2000 to 20,664 in 2025-26, a 55 per cent drop. In cities, the number declined from 22,694 to 16,319, or about 28 per cent in the same period. Private schools increased from 635 to 982, but account for only around 2.5 per cent of all schools.
The closures are not simply a result of Russia having fewer children. They are also linked to an “optimisation” programme launched in 2001, under which state funding was increasingly tied to the number of students enrolled. Smaller schools, particularly those in sparsely populated rural areas, became financially difficult to sustain and were merged with larger institutions or shut.
By 2010, around 26 per cent of the country’s schools had disappeared. Another 10,000 closed during the 2010s, followed by roughly 2,300 more since the start of the 2020s.
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From Russian values to patriotism
Researchers have linked the closures to village depopulation as well. A 2026 study found that when a village school closes, families can be forced to move to towns for their children’s education, while one parent may remain behind for work. In some settlements, the school’s closure has been followed by further population loss, eventually leading to a wipeout of a whole thriving local economy.
Meanwhile, the schools that remain have taken on a more explicitly state-directed role.
Since September 2022, Russian schools have held a mandatory weekly class known as “Conversations About Important Things”, with lessons covering themes including traditional Russian values, patriotism, service to the motherland and Moscow’s account of the war in Ukraine. The lesson plans for these are directly supplied by the Ministry of Education.
Russia also introduced new unified textbooks from 2023, which, according to an Amnesty International’s researcher, “hide the truth and distort the facts about serious human rights violations.”
The 2023 history textbook, for instance, describes Ukraine as an “aggressive anti-Russian bridgehead” and the Western sanctions as an attempt to destroy Russia’s economy. The textbooks also instruct students not to trust information found online.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)