Historical background

28 higher education establishments functioned in 1999: universities, institutes of arts; physical culture, medical academy; agricultural etc. It has graduated about 2000 specialists of the middle qualification and 40000 highly qualified specialists. The number of students of Universities and colleges of the capital was 53846 people in 1999. Among them there were 27773 people who studied on budgetary financing and 26073 people studied on the contract basis. 

Educational dynamics (thousands of people)   

Academic years	1995/96	1996/97	1997/98	19998/99	1999/2000
Sum total of pupils	148,6	160,1	167,9	194,5	173,8
In comprehensive schools	87,8	93,3	98,3	102,8	103,8
People who finished comprehensive schools	6,6	6,7	8,0	8,0	8,3
The number of colleges	19	19	18	18	17
technical colleges	4.7	5,7	5,5	5,6	5,6
high schools, including colleges	12,6	11,7	11,0	11.0	10,0
People who graduated from high schools	426	443	410	337	358
Total of higher education establishments	24	25	29	29	28
Students, studied at higher education establishments	41.0	45,3	51,8	70,2	79,1
Students, graduated from higher education  establishments	6912	8469	5554	9107	9765