"The quality of education remains the key problem," Putin said at a meeting of the Council on Science, Technologies, and Education in the Kremlin.
According to a report prepared by a working group on education, "the quality of basic secondary education [in Russia] is getting worse," and schools lack educational materials, equipment, and skilled teachers.
The president also said educational reforms were being conducted too slowly and with a lot of difficulties.
The government will provide assistance to teachers in the framework of a national educational project, he said.
According to Putin, 60% of the country's population is involved in the sphere of education, and about 80% of Russians up to 35 years of age consider higher education their main goal.
The president praised this trend and added that the state should support its citizens in their desire to improve their level of education.
Speaking at a news conference after the meeting, Russian Education Minister Andrey Fursenko said the state would continue its financial support of higher education.
"The state abandoning the educational sphere is out of the question," he said.
At the same time, Fursenko reiterated that Russia would not make a full transition to the BA-MA or "four plus two" system of higher education.
"We will keep the former model of training for certain professions, without separating the process into two stages," he said, adding that Russia was on schedule to introduce reforms required by European standards.
Rector of St. Petersburg State University Lyudmila Verbitskaya said there should be stricter requirements to the quality of education in Russia. "The requirements should be stricter because there is an inflation of knowledge as well as economic inflation."
She also said it was necessary to boost the prestige of the teaching profession and raise professors' monthly salaries to 30,000 rubles.
