Rethinking the essence of education as a leading factor of socio-economic development of modern Russia

The content of the study is an analysis of the inefficiency of Russian education, which is called upon to form highly effective human capital in the modern era. Investments in education will bring real profits, provided that the very paradigm of the educational process is revised - from formal competences - to the formation of knowledge about methods of cognition. The author presents the dialectical method as the highest form of a method of cognition based on creative and critical thinking, which are the most important conditions for the innovative transformation of the economy.