Russia to increase education funding by a quarter

The federal budget of Russia will increase education funding 28%,
which will bring total education expenditure to 500 billion rubles,
the director of a department of the Education Ministry, Valery Yurkin,
told a session, RIA Novosti reports.

He noted that the sum is 50% greater than the expenditure in 2008.
Expenditure on higher education and post-graduate studies will be
increased 15%, and increased two-fold for applied sciences. The
initiative takes into account the indexing of the scholarship fund,
labor payment fund and municipal expenses.

The leading Russian universities will receive additional support
funding, equal to 30 billion rubles, in 2011-2013.

The finances will be spent on innovative higher education centers,
such as the Lomonosov Moscow State University, the Saint-Petersburg
State University, federal universities, national research
universities, development of the infrastructure of universities,
cooperation between Russian higher education centers and manufacturing
business and attracting the leading scientists to Russian
universities.