Of the 68.8 thousand schools with which Russia entered the 21st century, 37.9 thousand remained by the 2025/26 academic year. The first and largest wave of closures came in 2000–2010: during that period, the number of schools fell by 18 thousand, or 26%.
In the 2010s, another 10 thousand schools, or 20%, were closed, and since the start of the 2020s — an additional 2.3 thousand. State schools in rural areas suffered the biggest losses: over 25 years, there were 55% fewer of them, or 25 thousand.
In cities, the school network also shrank by more than a quarter — from 20.7 thousand in 2000 to 16.3 thousand by the start of the 2025/26 academic year. The number of private schools over the same period increased by almost one and a half times, from 635 to 982, but their share of the total number of educational institutions remains at 2.5%.
The number of schoolchildren in Russia fell from 20.5 million in 2000 to 17.7 million in 2025, that is, by 14%, and this decline turned out to be noticeably milder than the contraction of the school network itself. At the same time, over the past 15 years, the number of students, according to HSE data, grew by 4 million thanks to an influx of migrants, of whom there were about 12 million in Russia by the start of the 2020s, according to the UN.
Even the schools that remain often do not meet basic requirements. As of 2024, 3.9 thousand general education institutions did not have sewage, 3.4 thousand had no running water, and 3.5 thousand had no central heating.
The most severe situation was recorded in Tuva, Dagestan, and Yakutia: in Tuva, 68% of schools do not have central heating, half lack sewage, and in Dagestan and Yakutia, 41% of schools operate without sewage. About a quarter of schools on average across Russia need major repairs, and about 500 have been deemed dilapidated and unsafe for occupancy.
Sources
