Increasing the efficiency of education as a way to strengthen the country's innovative potential and ensure long-term economic growth in the face of instability and changes in the labor market

In today's context of accelerated technological modernization and transformation of the labor market, characterized by a shorter life cycle of professions, automation of routine operations, and an increasing need for continuous updating of competencies, the efficiency of educational systems becomes crucial for the formation of competitive human capital and ensuring sustainable innovative development of the national economy. An analysis of international and domestic experience reveals the priority of qualitative parameters of the educational process — the content of programs, the qualifications of teaching staff, technological equipment, and institutional mechanisms — over quantitative indicators of funding and educational coverage, as an increase in the quality of education by one standard deviation is associated with an acceleration of long-term GDP growth per capita by up to two percentage points annually. A comparative assessment of data from various countries demonstrates that there is no direct correlation between the amount of spending and the results achieved. Singapore and the Republic of Korea achieve high PISA scores and employment rates for graduates with moderate to high spending due to their efficient process management, while the Russian system faces a significant gap between formal training and the actual demand for specialists, particularly in the fields of information technology, engineering, and biotechnology, where the proportion of personnel with relevant competencies does not exceed 47-59%, and the time for knowledge to become obsolete ranges from 2.8 to 6.4 years. The pronounced regional differentiation, manifested in a three-fold gap in education spending per capita and a two-fold gap in the share of highly qualified teachers and the level of digitalization between highly developed and depressed regions, creates systemic barriers to spatially balanced innovative growth. At the same time, the positive dynamics of universities' interaction with the real sector of the economy, expressed in the growth of basic departments, joint research, targeted training, and corporate scholarships by 52-80% over the period 2018-2022, indicate the formation of knowledge transfer mechanisms capable of converting intellectual potential into applied innovations. In general, improving the efficiency of education through institutional transformations, developing lifelong learning, providing targeted support to regions, and deepening integration with business is a strategic resource that can provide an additional 1.5-2 percentage points of annual GDP growth and strengthen the long-term competitiveness of the economy in the face of global turbulence.