Life safety lessons in Russian schools will be replaced by the subject “Fundamentals of security and defense of the Motherland”

On September 1, 2024, instead of a life safety lesson, a discipline called “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland” will appear in Russian schools. On Thursday, deputies, representatives of the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Ministry of Education and teachers discussed what the program of this subject should be. The military department said that a module has already been prepared, which includes tactical and fire training, radiation, chemical and biological protection, tactical medicine, combined arms regulations, and it is planned to involve participants in the NWO in teaching. Representatives of the educational community in response drew attention to insufficient funding and staffing problems.

A proposal to return elementary military training to Russian schools (NVP was taught to Soviet schoolchildren until 1990) a year ago sounded within the walls of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly: representatives of the United Russia faction came up with such an initiative. St. Petersburg parliamentarians have addressed a corresponding request to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Already in the fall, the Minister of Education, Sergei Kravtsov, announced the imminent appearance of discipline – but in the format of extracurricular activities. The department clarified that the CWP module will not be mandatory: introducing it, the school should rely on the opinion of the parents. However, in the spring of 2023, with the initiative to include NVP as a mandatory element of educational programs spoke already deputies of the Republic of Altai.

Among other things, the officials proposed to allow retired officers and combatants to teach the course.

In June, Mr. Kravtsov insisted that it was necessary to work out a block of initial military training and give the new subject an appropriate name – “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland.”

Teachers, deputies, representatives of the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Ministry of Education on Thursday discussed plans to develop a new subject at a round table in the State Duma. The head of the Duma Committee on Education, Olga Kazakova (ER), set the tone for the event, saying that this was the first large-scale discussion of the topic: “The subject is extremely important for us, because it should form certain skills in our children that can be useful to them in later life.”

“It’s not just about the NWO and other events. The fact is that due to changed living conditions and a higher level of comfort, a modern young man aged 17-18 is an infantile young man, in many respects not ready for real life, – Andrei Kartapolov, head of the Defense Committee (ER), supported his colleague .—Today the world has entered an era of turbulence. Our children and grandchildren must be prepared for the fact that the country will have to be defended.”

Anna Timofeeva, Deputy Director of the Department of State Policy and Management in the Sphere of General Education of the Ministry of Education, confirmed that from September 1, 2024, instead of the OBZH lesson, “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland” will appear in Russian schools. According to her, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Emergency Situations will be responsible for developing the program. In the near future, changes will be made to the law “On Education” in terms of renaming the subject of life safety, as well as changes to federal state educational standards.

Ms. Timofeeva added that, together with the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the department has already prepared programs for five-day military training for schoolchildren. “Who painted the walls, who cleaned the school, and the girls were engaged in activities that had nothing to do with the five-day gathering,” she described how these activities were carried out before.

Now the training camps will be held, in particular, on the basis of the Avangard or Patriot centers. At the same time, they plan to train schoolgirls in first aid, as well as sanitation, so that they can teach others to help.

The extracurricular NVP program, which Sergey Kravtsov spoke about last fall, is ready and can be used by schools already in the upcoming academic year, Mikhail Borodin, an expert from the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, hastened to clarify. According to him, the course, which was created taking into account the experience gained by military personnel in Ukraine, includes nine modules. Among them are tactical training, firearms training, the basics of technical training and communications, engineering training, radiation, chemical and biological protection, tactical medicine, combined arms regulations, drill training, the basics of military service safety. “The program is designed to be implemented primarily on the basis of the Avangard centers,” a representative of the military department outlined the prospects. “At present, there are 104 such centers in Russia. The Ministry of Defense is working on the issue of creating such centers in cities with a population of 50,000 people. It is planned to actively involve veterans of the Northern Military District in conducting classes.”

Representatives of the pedagogical community who entered into the discussion cautiously announced a shortage of personnel. According to MPGU professor Nikolai Simonov, the country lacks about 42,000 life safety teachers.

Ms. Kazakova objected that today in Russia there are only about 40 thousand teachers of all disciplines, and asked to “deal with the statistics.” It should be noted that according to Rosstat in 2022, there were 1,251,964 school teachers in Russia.

The OBZh teacher of school No. 2 in Kislovodsk, Alexander Chantsov, who returned to teaching after participating in the SVO, said that in his city there are only five OBZh teachers for 15 schools: “Four of them are police officers, and even with great difficulty they attracted them to work. Work as a teacher for 15 thousand rubles. nobody wants it, especially the reserve officers who get 40,000 in retirement.” Mr. Chantsov noted that there are not enough textbooks in schools. “The OBZH funding comes last,” he complained. “First, mathematics, Russian, physics, chemistry, and so on are bought. The next year, all (programs) change, the additional purchase of mathematics, physics, chemistry begins again – and so the line for life safety has never reached.

“Most of the schools do not have the necessary material and human resources to implement the program for initial military training,” Sergey Eltsov, director of the Shuya school No. 9, confirmed. “Naturally, very serious financial investments are required. For example: the cost of a classic obstacle course for a school is about 1 million rubles. If you look at the order of the Ministry of Education (.pdf) dated September 6, 2022, No. 804, health and safety rooms should be equipped with weapon safes, mini-express laboratories for radiation and chemical reconnaissance, dosimeters, gas analyzers, protective suits, visual aids, simulators, samples of modern small arms. Obviously, financing the costs of purchasing mandatory equipment is an impossible task for the municipal and regional budgets.”

To this, Anna Timofeeva weightily noted that the federal ministry “will not bring you personnel” – many issues lie within the competence of the subjects. “Subventions for the subjects are allocated,” she assured. “Colleagues, I have not had a single request from the subject who writes: allocate additional subventions for the material and technical equipment of the life safety office.”

Emilia Gabdullina