‘They just threw the book at me’

Inside Russia's campaign to push teenagers out of the classroom and into trade schools

This summer, Russian parents have flooded social media with complaints that their children cannot get into tenth grade. Some ninth graders fell short on the exam required for advancement; other parents point to conflicts with teachers, disciplinary complaints, or schools chasing better ratings. Across Russia, ninth-graders are increasingly being pushed out of the academic track that leads to university and funneled toward vocational schools. Novaya Gazeta Europe spoke to four women from different regions about their children's experiences with this phenomenon. All names have been changed for the participants' safety.

‘My daughter came home with panic attacks’

Vera is one of Russia’s many parents who have complained this year about teachers’ “constant pressure” on students. Ninth graders face an especially high-stakes hurdle: an exam that determines whether they can continue into tenth grade.

The Main State Exam (OGE in Russian) is the gatekeeper to tenth grade in Russian schools. The test is composed of four subjects: Russian, mathematics, and two electives depending on a child’s desired specialty. OGE results determine whether a student can continue into tenth grade, and those who are not admitted may have to pursue vocational education instead. For many, this means entering the workforce earlier and having fewer opportunities to pursue a university degree. For boys, the vocational route can also leave them more exposed to military conscription.

In 2026, Russian officials have been actively campaigning for more students to enter vocational training as opposed to higher education. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin promised to add ten thousand vocational training slots, while State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin claimed the vocational track was becoming more popular.

Vera’s ninth-grade daughter enjoyed going to school in Moscow’s Kommunarka district. She wanted to continue with tenth grade, and chose computer science and literature as her electives, believing that it would maximize her chances for a higher score.

But despite having good marks in her classes — a grade point average of 4.4 out of 5 — her OGE results were not high enough for her to continue into tenth grade. The average threshold set by schools is 3.75 out of 5, but each school sets its minimum standard. Vera’s daughter got 3s in Russian and literature, and 4 in math and computer science.

“She prepared for it, working with a tutor. She is not a happy-go-lucky kind of girl, she is very responsible,” her mother says. “But she is a very emotional person, and that tripped her up.” Vera explained that her daughter normally gets good scores, but in high-pressure practice exams, she scored 3s and even 2s.

Vera, who has a degree in psychology, says the problem lies less in the exam questions themselves than in the way the exam is conducted. “The formality of it is frightening,” she says. “There’s all this pressure — you put a dot in the wrong place, or use the wrong pen — things that have nothing to do with knowledge. Children’s bodies and minds simply aren’t capable of adapting to that kind of formality. At university, fine — that kind of formality in exams is one thing. That’s a different brain, a different stage of development. But when your daughter is going through puberty and you pile this on top of it — you can really end up losing a child.”

It got to the point that Vera had to take her daughter to a psychiatrist, who prescribed her sedatives to take for the exams. Yet she was still overwhelmed by panic and did not score high enough even for a general tenth grade track. “It was a difficult time with these panic attacks… She was so overwhelmed with emotions that her nervous system turned off, the panic came on, and she simply couldn’t get the needed score,” Vera explains.

Vera believes students who passed the OGE did so not because they knew the material well, but because they were shrewd and knew how to work the system — unlike her daughter, who insists on knowing everything herself.

Irina from the Saratov region, whose son passed the test, believes the same. “My son is upset that every single one of his classmates used copied answers and scored better than him… It is unfair,” she says.

Her son was a good student throughout school, and scored well on every OGE category except physics, which he needed for a tenth grade specialty track. He passed the exam. But teachers still told him to find a new school.

Vera made peace with her daughter’s vocational track. They settled with a state scholarship for a programme in teaching. But it turned out that even vocational specialties are highly competitive. In Moscow this year, some tracks like nursing had 18 applicants per slot. Hairdressing had 14–16. In comparison, some majors at the top-ranked Moscow State University had 11 applicants per seat.

Too many university grads

“A propaganda campaign for vocational training has been going on all year,” says Varvara, a mother in Novosibirsk whose daughter missed her advancement to tenth grade by one point. She was then rejected from a college and three nearby schools where she applied.

At that point, Varvara met with the head of Novosibirsk’s education department. She says that he promised to help, and that students have the right to complete eleven grades of education.

In fact, that is a legislative right. Article 66, Part 5 of the law on education makes secondary school mandatory. A Constitutional Court ruling from 2020 states that a child who completed ninth grade, but did not score high enough for a specialized tenth grade track, cannot be kicked out from their school.

Varvara’s daughter ultimately passed to tenth grade, but in a new school. She understands the pressure stems from a lack of schools in her developing area. Another factor is the country’s shortage of workers in skilled trades.  “We have too many people with university degrees. Twenty years ago, everybody was getting one,” Varvara says.

In Moscow, Anna’s son completed all nine grades in a school close to their home in the Izmailovo district. But he was not an exemplary student.

“[Teachers] did all they could to convince me to pull him out of his school,” Anna says. “They even threatened me, saying that he wouldn’t pass exams because he is a weak student. The school administration simply couldn’t bother with a child who scores 3s [out of 5] because it affects their rating. The school needs good results. But they forget that good results come from an army of tutors.”

Anna says that she is the only parent in her school who fought tooth and nail against this rejection, appealing to the school administration and the Moscow Department of Education. Ultimately, her son got to stay in the school he’d been in since first grade. “But as his mother, it made me literally sick to my stomach, worrying about all this,” she says.

Even so, school officials did not process her son’s admission in time for the 1 September start date. Anna believes it is part of a national campaign to “segregate” children between university and the labour force.

“Children with average marks are condemned to vocational school, and after that comes the army,” Anna says. “Very few of them go back to school. It feels like educated people are simply not needed.”

Larisa, a musician, also used the word “segregation” to describe what happened to her son in Ufa last year.

Until fifth grade, he attended a specialty school for physics and mathematics before psychological testing placed him into a liberal arts track, even though he liked math and computer science more. Larisa eventually transferred him to a different school.

“Psychologists use these tests to determine what path fourth graders [around 9 or 10 years old] should be on. It’s strange, because boys mature when they are around 13 or 14. Only then you can get a sense of who the child is,” she says.

At the new school, her son’s behaviour became a problem. Larisa says that he came under the influence of other teenagers. “He didn’t smoke, drink, or beat anybody up,” she says. “It just seemed like he wanted to stand out and got mixed up with the wrong people. My understanding is that they were intimidating all the teachers by walking the hallways together like a pack of wolves. And at their age, these boys are already huge.”

Her son’s average mark in ninth grade was a respectable 4.1 out of 5, and after the OGE, families whose children wanted to continue to tenth grade were summoned to a panel at the principal’s office, she says.

“They just threw the book at me. It was humiliating. They told me I was raising him wrong, that I didn’t invest enough time; they wanted to write to my employer,” she remembers. When the administration blocked her son from progressing to the tenth grade, Larisa decided to fight back.

“We cried for a day. Well, mostly me. He’s the only son I have. Then we got our wits together and looked at nearby schools and vocational centres for three weeks,” she says.

Larisa’s local connections saved the day. Through acquaintances at the musical school where she works, she got in touch with a local government official, who contacted her son’s school. The principal called the family for another meeting.

“Of course, the difference in how they talked to me then was like night and day. They were very respectful, even deferent. I was surprised,” she recalls.

Even though she’s glad that her son stayed with the school where he spent his childhood, she sees her situation as part of a deeper problem. “The education system is just rotten,” she says. “The boys are not interested. They’re unmotivated. It’s not the teachers’ fault — I know they’re doing everything they can.”

Her son is starting eleventh grade this September. He’s still thinking about where to apply for university. To give him a better future, Larisa is thinking more about leaving Russia.