Course concern: it is proposed to establish a single standard for online schools
A unified standard for online education and a special list of organizations and entrepreneurs conducting online courses are proposed to be introduced in Russia. With such a proposal, the CCI Committee on Education and Social Policy appealed to the government, amid a rapid increase in complaints about the quality of such services. According to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the register of online schools will serve as an indicator of their reliability. Earlier, Izvestia reported on mass lawsuits in the courts — students of the courses claim that online schools do not comply with programs, promises of guaranteed results are not fulfilled, and the number of paid hours is decreasing. In the first half of 2025, according to Rospotrebnadzor, the number of complaints reached 3.7 thousand. The online learning market is developing practically without government regulation, hence the low quality of such services, experts believe.
How to monitor online courses
In Russia, a single standard of online education is needed, which could be developed by specialized associations working with the use of remote technologies. The Committee on Education and Social Policy of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation has made such a proposal to the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Education.
Moreover, he proposed to introduce a state register of organizations and sole proprietors who have the right to provide educational services online. Roskomnadzor was asked to strengthen control over activities in the field of information business, and the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Education were asked to tighten the requirements for licenses for educational activities in order to ensure the quality of educational services, protect the rights of students and increase confidence in the education system.
The proposals appeared amid widespread complaints about the quality of online education services. As Izvestia previously wrote, participants of the Mastermind and Unlimited courses from Yuri Spivak, hosted on the Schoolsmart platform, filed lawsuits against the organizers of educational programs. As the victims noted, the service provided did not meet the criteria outlined in the advertisement.
At a round table in the Federation Council in October 2025, a representative of Rospotrebnadzor said that in 2024, more than 4,000 complaints about online courses had been received. At the same time, in the first half of 2025 alone, their number reached 3.7 thousand. The situation is related, in particular, to the popularity of the information business: consumers are often not offered educational services in the full sense of the word, but only consultations or information services that are not regulated as strictly as educational ones.
— In 2024 alone, we filed 190 consumer lawsuits in the field of online education. More than 90% of them were satisfied," said Natalia Pavlyuchenko, Deputy Head of the Federal State Supervision Service for Consumer Protection at Rospotrebnadzor.
In the first six months of 2025, the agency filed 170 lawsuits, the amount of penalties amounted to more than 12 million rubles. Of these, 700 thousand rubles were for moral damage.
Anna Palagina, Deputy Chairman of the CCI Committee on Education and Social Policy, Rector of the International Institute of Management of Business Associations, noted that the chamber's proposal had already been supported by relevant communities, in particular the Online Education Association and the Association of PR Specialists.
— The CCI will act as the guide of this proposal to the legislators, exercising its right of legislative initiative. After its final revision, we will come up with such a legislative initiative," she said.
Izvestia sent requests to Rosobrnadzor, the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Education and Education with a request to evaluate the proposed measures.
Rosobrnadzor has not yet responded to the request, but at a meeting of the CCI Committee on Education and Social Policy, department representative Nikolai Payganov said that it would be advisable "to establish ratings for individual entrepreneurs, individuals and organizations conducting online trainings, seminars and personal development courses not related to the implementation of educational programs." According to him, the rating should be similar to the existing ratings of schools, colleges and universities.
What is the problem with online courses?
The online learning market in our country is developing practically without government regulation, confirmed Ivan Litvinov, head of the Association of the Self-employed in Russia. He explained that unlike classical education, the activities of private online schools and platforms are not subject to mandatory licensing - unless they implement full—fledged educational programs and do not issue state-issued diplomas.
"This creates a situation where bona fide professionals and casual players are side by side in the market, and consumers do not have the tools to check quality," he said. — To increase transparency and trust, it is logical to create a national rating of online education organizations. It can be an independent evaluation system based on feedback, openness of information about courses, the duration of the platform's operation in the market, the percentage of returns and student satisfaction. A familiar five-star system would help users navigate the market.
Complaints about low-quality online courses are most often related to a violation of the terms of the contract, the lack of promised content, or the inability to refund money.
Valery Korneev, head of the Digital World Union of Digital Platforms, added that there are now a huge number of pseudo-educational institutions in the country that "earn dozens, maybe hundreds of times more than the real ones, and even those that work online."
The CCI's proposal is aimed at combating a real problem that primarily affects educational organizations that provide services in the field of additional professional education for adults, said Alexander Afonin, head of the intellectual property practice at Afonin, Bozhor and Partners law firm.
— The proposals are relevant and confirm the obvious problem of the quality of education, however, most likely, these specific proposed measures are not so effective. Government agencies do not have the necessary resources for quality control, and the certification system is unlikely to drive unscrupulous companies that make good money from it out of the market," he said.
Evgeny Nezhdanov, President of the 1T consortium and provider of federal Training for the IT Industry projects, believes that it is wrong to separate private and public educational organizations.
— For the latest online programs — the same earnings, — said the expert. — They often receive extra-budgetary money from these programs alone, which goes to bonuses. The quality of the program or its implementation does not depend on the form of ownership. It depends only on the professionalism and experience of the staff of methodologists, analysts, and teachers. And, of course, the relevance of the program.
The issue of online courses as part of training or advanced training is an ambiguous topic, said Sergey Gerashchenko, head of the Department for Professional Development of Teaching Staff at the State University of Education.
"There is no clear answer whether this is a good thing or a bad thing," he believes. — On the one hand, such courses reduce the resources expended, including time, offset distances, allowing students to get convenient access to training at any time and from anywhere in the world. On the other hand, there is a great danger of a formal approach to learning. After all, no one will take the responsibility to confidently declare that all listeners have familiarized themselves with the presented content and, most importantly, that they have improved their competencies.
According to him, in this case, the word "passed" appears instead of "learned." The face-to-face format allows students to be more involved in active and interactive interaction. According to Sergey Gerashchenko, certain criteria are needed that will allow segregating all online schools and platforms that conduct training, "rating or otherwise establishing their reliability."
To solve the problem with online schools, voluntary quality standards can be developed, similar to technical regulations in other areas, Ivan Litvinov believes. They could include teacher qualification requirements, transparent refund rules, and a mandatory description of the program and expected learning outcomes.
"There is no need to create barriers to entry into the market," he believes. — This will kill the live expert segment. But it would be worthwhile to introduce voluntary certification for teachers and platforms: it would give users clear guidelines, and professionals the opportunity to strengthen the audience's trust.
The regulation of the online course market should be based not on prohibitions, but on transparency and standardization, experts stressed.
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