Deputies discussed children’s issues – Newspaper Kommersant No. 213 (7414) dated 11/17/2022

Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov spoke Wednesday at the State Duma. One of the main topics of the “government hour” was patriotic education and the “correct” teaching of history, which should prevent the enemies of Russia from taking over the minds of our children. The Just Russia For Truth (SRZP) faction took the opportunity to campaign for the minister to return to the primary military training program (CMP) as a compulsory subject, but the official was not enthusiastic about the idea.

Sergei Kravtsov justified his special attention to history by quoting President Vladimir Putin, who recently stated that historical education “should begin as early as kindergarten.” “And we are actively working in this direction,” the minister assured. He called the creation of new textbooks an “extremely important issue”: “We are obliged to protect our schoolchildren from pseudo-values, building reliable defense lines here, especially since, you know, an active information war, information aggression is being waged against our country.” According to the official, a new textbook for the ninth grade “Introduction to Recent History” has already been developed, dedicated to “the turning point events of the 20th and early 21st centuries, including very recent events: this is both a special military operation and the admission of new regions to Russia.”

True, so far “the Eurocentric approach dominates in the study of history,” the head of the Ministry of Education complained, but the time has finally come to “straighten this bias”: “For our children, Russia should become the supporting core of historical education.”

Mr. Kravtsov also noted that the ministry is “closely engaged in the educational component of the educational process” and in 2022 “a unified working education program for schools has been brought into line with the national security strategy of Russia.” “The school week begins with a ‘talk about the important’… Such innovations in schools, the raising of the national flag and the performance of the national anthem are supported by the vast majority of citizens,” the minister reported. At the same time, he positively assessed the return to the school curriculum of Alexander Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard” (this happened at the initiative of the Duma Committee on Education, its head of United Russia Olga Kazakova modestly recalled later). The official places “great hopes” on the creation of the All-Russian Movement of Children and Youth.

Separately, Sergey Kravtsov thanked the deputies for the bill on the possibility of transferring schools from the municipal to the regional level (it was introduced the day before by a group of 341 deputies headed by speaker Vyacheslav Volodin and leaders of all factions), which will improve the efficiency of school management. He also considers the establishment of the educational process in new regions to be an important task: in each of them, pedagogical universities of federal subordination will be created, in the structure of which there will be institutes for advanced training.

Then the deputies asked questions. Sergei Leonov (LDPR) was interested in the development of additional education. “We are the only country in the world where additional education is free. 77% of schoolchildren are covered by additional education,” the minister boasted with pleasure. And he promised that it would be even better in the future: a sports club and a school theater would appear in every school.

Yana Lantratova (SRZP) took care of the fate of Russian schools in the CIS countries: “The task of our opponents is to reorient the CIS countries from the orbit of Russia’s influence and involve them in the system of Western political guidelines. And the emphasis is on education. Is there a way to guarantee quality education according to uniform standards in Russian schools in the CIS countries?” Sergei Kravtsov agreed that the issue of humanitarian cooperation with the CIS countries is extremely relevant, and promised to discuss a strategy for its solution with the Russian Foreign Ministry.

“Any parent understands that knowledge and education are equal values. How does the ministry see the organization of this work, so that every teacher, every subject teacher, entering the class, educates Russian patriots and becomes a patriot himself?” — asked Nurbagand Nurbagandov (ER). “You are like the father of a hero (the son of a deputy, Magomed, a policeman, received the title of Hero of Russia posthumously.— “b”) you know that patriotic education is an example of heroes,” replied Mr. Kravtsov. And he said that on December 9, for the first time, a forum of schools bearing the names of the heroes of the Soviet Union, Russia and the special military operation will be held.

Vyacheslav Volodin raised the issue of labor education: “In order for a child to wash a board, one must obtain parental permission. In order for him to take part in the cleaning of the class, you must obtain the permission of the parents. But the same parents ask us that labor education be an integral part of the same programs.”

The head of the Labor Committee, Yaroslav Nilov (LDPR), in turn, suggested starting to deal with career guidance issues “already from kindergarten.”

Oleg Nilov (SRZP) spoke in favor of the return of NVP as a compulsory subject, and not in the form of “interspersed in life safety” (the basics of life safety) and for attracting “officers who returned from a special operation” as teachers. Sergey Kravtsov, however, noted that the OBZH program is much broader and should not be replaced with NVP.

Recall, earlier a proposal to introduce NVP lessons in schools and vocational schools was sent to the Ministry of Defense by the leader of the SRZP Sergei Mironov. This idea has already been supported by the first deputy head of the military department, Valery Gerasimov, who believes that 140 hours should be allocated for this subject over two academic years.

25-year-old Maxim Gulin (“New People”), speaking on behalf of the faction, suddenly spoke about the Soviet experience. In his opinion, education is “not lessons of courage”, it should be “active”: “Soviet education was in activity: Timurovites, waste paper collection, trips for potatoes. You are brought up by doing something. So, for example, orienteering teaches you to find your way in the forest, to work in a team.”

Vice Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy (ER) brought his colleagues from the past back to the present, lamenting that “the lessons of talking about the important” are not correctly understood everywhere.

“Just this week, teachers in the Kaluga and Voronezh regions devoted these lessons to the topic of tolerance, and the children were painting rainbow flags!” United Russia was outraged. But the problem here, in his opinion, is much broader: “Teachers are directly forbidden to talk about SVO, and then we are surprised at the queues of young men fleeing our country. Because for many years they have been told that patriotism is something so marginal and shameful, and most importantly, it is material success, a career.” Therefore, in this area, too, “uniform methodological recommendations should be developed,” the vice speaker summed up.

Ksenia Veretennikova