Education focused on a bright future

Addressing the Federal Assembly, Vladimir Putin did not ignore the “accumulated” problems in school education. The head of state unveiled a number of initiatives designed to close recent controversial issues in this area. The most resonant proposals turned out to be not new. In particular, the head of state proposed giving school graduates the opportunity to promptly retake one of the Unified State Exams, and also promised “on the basis of pilot projects” to work out a new model of fair remuneration for teachers and other public sector employees by 2026.

The initiatives of the head of state, as he himself emphasized, relate to “accumulated” problems. Thus, Vladimir Putin promised to help the regions renovate all schools by 2030 and update medical offices in them, and at the expense of the federal budget to build new schools where it is necessary to introduce “a second and even a third shift.” From March 1, 2024, class teachers and group curators in colleges and technical schools in settlements where less than 100 thousand people live are proposed to double the federal payment for class teaching – up to 10 thousand rubles. Advisers to educational directors will receive 5 thousand rubles from the federal budget. per month, “which didn’t happen before.”

Having announced fixed bonuses, Vladimir Putin moved on to the long-standing problem of remuneration for teachers and public sector workers in general. “The level of average salaries in the economy in the regions is different, which means that the incomes of public sector workers, even in neighboring regions, sometimes differ markedly. At the same time, the work of a teacher or doctor is equally difficult and extremely responsible everywhere. Such a large disparity in salaries from region to region is unfair,” the Russian President noted, adding that the problem is “a long-standing, very complex, capital-intensive.” Deciding “not to go into details,” Vladimir Putin asked the Cabinet of Ministers to work out a new model of remuneration for public sector employees in 2025 as part of pilot projects in the regions, and in 2026 to make a final decision for the entire country.

The Ministry of Education did not comment on this installation. The head of the department, Sergei Kravtsov, only noted that issues of supporting teachers are “under special control” in the ministry and that in 2023, “more than 470 types of social support measures totaling over 53 billion rubles” were implemented in the regions.

It should be noted that an experiment designed to make teachers’ remuneration “more transparent” and establish uniform amounts of payments for teachers in different regions so that salaries “for the same work do not differ by five to six times” was previously announced by the Ministry of Education in five regions (“Kommersant” talked about this on September 12, 2021).

Moreover, they decided to develop the changes after a press conference by Russian President Vladimir Putin back in 2020.

“We have been asking for a long time to introduce a unified, transparent salary calculation scheme for all teachers, but this has never happened,” Ivan Menshikov, a mathematics teacher and member of the council of the Teacher trade union, told Kommersant. The problem of the gap in the salaries of teachers from different regions, he clarified, “has long since reached a critical level,” and until they begin to “really solve it, we can’t expect a large number of young, proactive specialists to come to school.”

Meanwhile, the head of state later spoke about the attractiveness of schools for promising youth. He approved the construction of leadership-level educational schools in five regions and assured that by 2030, 12 such institutions will be opened. According to the president’s plan, teaching teams will work in them, famous for their “unique author’s methods.” As for the “content of education,” for Mr. Putin, the “problem of discrepancies between educational programs and exam questions” is obvious. Therefore, the president insisted, “the Unified State Examination mechanism must be improved.” He, in particular, proposed “giving graduates what is called a second chance”: the opportunity to retake the Unified State Exam in one of the subjects. Moreover, do this before the end of the university admissions campaign in order to have time to submit documents, taking into account the retake.

It is curious that a bill that allowed schoolchildren to retake the Unified State Exam within a month if they were not satisfied with the exam result was introduced to the State Duma by deputies from the New People faction almost two years ago (“Kommersant” talked about this on April 28, 2022).

Rosobrnadzor then told Kommersant that they did not support the initiative and called the proposals contained in the document redundant. On Thursday, responding to the president’s idea, Rosobrnadzor reported that they were ready to make changes to the procedure and schedule for conducting the Unified State Exam as soon as possible. “The scheme for implementing the innovation is being worked out in more detail together with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Education and Science,” the department added. “This issue requires synchronization of decisions made regarding the organization of the Unified State Exam with the timing of the admission campaign to universities.” In addition, they plan to work out the issue of organizational and technological support with the regions.

“Giving graduates a second chance to retake one of the Unified State Exam subjects without losing a year is an excellent opportunity to maintain their motivation to realize their life trajectory at their desired university,” supported SUM Rector Vladimir Stroev in a conversation with Kommersant. According to him, it often happens that school graduates, due to strong feelings, do not gain enough points in the subject, although academic performance and intermediate certifications indicate the opposite.

HSE Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Education Viktor Bolotov (in 2004–2008, he headed Rosobrnadzor and was at the origins of the creation of the Unified State Exam system in Russia) notes that the opportunity to retake the Unified State Exam in itself does not contradict the original idea – “to give equal chances to enter universities to graduates from different regions”. However, it is important to carefully consider organizational issues, he adds. “You cannot shift the task onto the shoulders of universities and internal admissions committees, as this can lead to fraud,” Mr. Bolotov is sure. “It is also important to maintain a system in which work is checked according to uniform rules, and not internal regional or university rules.” According to the expert, USE inspectors will have to work at an accelerated pace, “and this requires additional costs and good funding.”

Polina Yachmennikova