Column of the Director of the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution “Institute for Education Development Strategy” Tatyana Sukhanova on the transition to unified school programs from September 1

Russian schools will meet the new academic year with updated curricula and programs. They will now be based on federal basic general education programs that establish a mandatory basic level of requirements for the content of general education.

General education programs must be brought into line with the federal basic general education programs no later than September 1, 2023, in accordance with the amendments of September 24, 2022 to the laws “On Education” and “On Mandatory Requirements”. The creation of these programs is the result of consistent efforts to strengthen the unified educational space of Russia. In 2021, the federal state educational standards for general education were updated. The need to improve the standards was prompted by pedagogical practice. The framework requirements for subject content and educational outcomes led to arbitrary interpretations, to differences in the programs in subjects, to the violation of the principles of consistency and continuity, the unity of the educational space.

So, in May 2021, a selective analysis of work programs on the history of the Great Patriotic War was carried out in Russian schools for the presence of content units “Plan Barbarossa”, “General Plan Ost”, “Brest Fortress”, “Defense of Sevastopol”, “Nuremberg Trials”.

Only a third of the tested programs contained all of the listed elements, and almost half of the programs included none.

Therefore, at the state level, the basic content of general education was approved, the development of which should be provided by each school. The updated standards have acquired specific formulations that are understandable to teachers and parents, and the federal basic general education programs have fixed the content of education and the sequence of its development. Federal basic general education programs will guarantee equal access for all schoolchildren in the country to quality education.

The federal basic general education programs include 405 work programs in all subjects from grades 1 to 11, including programs for in-depth study of subjects, as well as programs for the study of native languages ​​and native literature. The content of the programs fully corresponds to the actual tasks. In all academic subjects, the emphasis has been shifted from the “academic” development of knowledge to the formation of the ability to apply this knowledge in real life situations. In natural science subjects, hours for laboratory workshops have been increased. At the same time, the preservation and strengthening of the fundamental nature, which the national school has always been famous for, is ensured. Increased attention to physics, mathematics and computer science. For example, a new subject “Probability and Statistics” has been introduced, it includes the topics “Data Presentation”, “Statistics”, “Probability”, “Combinatorics”, “Graphs”, “Logic”, “Sets”; Until now, these topics have not been studied in the course of mathematics. The changes did not affect the teaching methods in any way: the focus on the use of activity forms of work, the formation of functional literacy, and the involvement of schoolchildren in project and research activities were retained.

Teachers are offered a single set of documents: federal work programs in academic subjects, the federal curriculum, the federal calendar curriculum, the federal education program, the federal calendar plan for educational work, etc. This will synchronize the learning process, implement common approaches to the content of education, to assessment of educational results, as well as the conditions for organizing the educational process at school.

Variability is achieved through the possibility of choosing options for curricula, programs of basic and advanced levels, the content of education in the part formed by the participants in educational relations, in extracurricular activities, as well as through the choice of forms and methods of working with schoolchildren.

All of these changes are accompanied by methodological support for teachers. We have fundamentally changed our approaches to methodological support: we work not only on request, but also ahead of the curve. For the convenience of teachers and teaching staff of schools, our institute has developed online services – digital “constructors” of work programs and curricula; more than 1 million work programs and 50 thousand curricula have already been created in these constructors. We conduct weekly methodological seminars for teachers of all subjects; hotline works. Experts from the Institute for Education Development Strategy develop methodological manuals that accompany the activities of teachers in the organization of the educational process, including in an interactive format, they analyze topics that are difficult to teach. We promptly place all relevant information, regulatory and educational materials in the public domain on the portal “Unified content of general education”. The demand for our support is confirmed by the number of users of the portal – more than 3 million people.

Tatyana Sukhanova, Director of the Institute for Education Development Strategy