More than 800 high school graduates have enrolled in Russia’s best universities by using the quotas allocated for combatants in the Ukraine war and their children, Russian independent news outlet IStories has revealed after studying data from the country’s 13 highest-ranking universities.
In total, 833 applicants were accepted onto bachelor’s programmes, 203 of whom were enrolled “without entrance exams”, the investigation found. At the same time, the majority (429 people or 69%) of the school graduates who needed to take the Unified State Exam, a series of exams required to finish high school and get into universities in Russia, would not pass the competition on equal grounds because their exam results put them way below other candidates.
IStories quotes Dmitry, the son of an injured Ukraine war combatant, who was accepted into the prestigious Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology with 127 points in total (which is three times lower than the threshold):
“I am the first person in history to get there with this result. And the last, possibly. I studied so poorly [at school] that every teacher was telling me that I would end up expelled. [The university administration] asked if I knew what I was getting into with this university. I explained to them that since I can enrol in this university, I definitely want to”, he said.
This quota will be used to train a diverse set of professionals: from doctors and teachers to IT professionals and TV reporters, the journalists stress.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to offer concessions for children of combatants in the Ukraine war wanting to get higher education degrees in May 2022. The quota stands at “10% in every field and programme of studies”. Children of soldiers killed in the line of duty are eligible to get into universities without any exams.
The Russian Education Ministry recommended universities offer support for students who fought in the Ukraine war but were not able to use the quota. In such cases the authorities suggested offering applicants financial help, reducing tuition fees, or providing options to split them.
