Parents liked the “gold standard of knowledge”: there is now no confusion in teaching school subjects

Many parents and children felt how the approach to education in Russian schools has changed this year. The innovation will allow all young Russians to receive knowledge of the same high quality and study in equally comfortable conditions. Read about why it is important to teach children according to one federal standard in the material “MK”.

More time for children

The most important principle of the Federal State Educational Standard for Basic General Education is that now, regardless of where the student lives – in a city or in a village, in the capital or in the outback – he will receive a quality education. The level will be equally high for all Russian children. For this purpose, federal basic general education programs (FOEP) have been introduced in schools.

Experts have repeatedly spoken about the prerequisites for such a decision. Thus, according to Natalya Tarasova, director of the Center for Socialization and Personalization of Children’s Education at the Federal Institute for Educational Development of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, the introduction of uniform standards was required primarily because the general education system allowed for variability in educational programs. As a result, both families who changed their place of residence and teachers who had to work with a mountain of documentation experienced difficulties.

Even before the start of the school year, orders were developed to include federal work programs in all academic subjects in the FSEP in accordance with the Federal State Educational Standard. Methodological recommendations on the implementation of such programs were sent to the regions. Moreover, if previously school teachers had to independently draw up a curriculum and select educational material, now they have been relieved of this burden. This task has “reached the federal level”: teachers can use ready-made solutions. Plans for extracurricular activities, calendar educational schedules, calendar plans for educational work – teachers will no longer have to do all this themselves. This means teachers will have more time to work with children.

Both in St. Petersburg and Kamchatka

The document on a unified standard in education defines the basic minimum that children must master in each subject, and so that every student has this opportunity equally, textbooks are also developed uniformly for all schools – without errors and discrepancies, developed by education experts and approved by at the federal level. Thus, state history textbooks for grades 10–11 were included in the federal list of textbooks this summer, and from September 1 they are used in the educational process. And the unified information system implemented in schools allows teachers and students to use high-quality and proven educational content.

“We have lived all our lives in St. Petersburg, but now my husband is being transferred to work in Kamchatka for two years,” St. Petersburg resident Galina, mother of schoolchildren Olya and Nikita, told MK. “I was sure that the quality of education in the Northern capital was clearly higher than “at the end of the world,” and a year ago I might have refused to move the whole family. Now, if the standard of education has become uniform, I don’t have to worry that our children will fall behind their St. Petersburg classmates and return to their home school with gaps in knowledge. So let’s all go together.

Lyudmila, whose son attends a village school in the Krasnodar Territory, also agrees with Galina. Mom has already felt what a single standard means in school curricula.

“I, of course, am not present at my son’s lessons, but the fact that this year he is mastering the material perfectly and for the first time in all six years of study we have not had the need to turn to online tutors speaks for itself,” says the student’s mother. – It is immediately felt that the program and presentation of material in all subjects has changed for the better.

Attention to the culture of speech and history

Unified approaches give children a clear idea of ​​spiritual, moral, personal, and patriotic guidelines. And since all these components are inextricably linked with the word, with the written and oral expression of one’s thoughts, then, of course, some lessons will require special attention. An increase in educational hours in some subjects has been approved. So, there will now be more Russian language and literature lessons. In grades 10–11, for example, according to the federal work program for the Russian language, the number of hours in this subject has increased to two per week, with special emphasis on speech culture and reading literacy.

“With the federal work program in my subject, it has become more convenient for both me and the children,” Elena Nikolaevna, a teacher of Russian language and literature from Siberia, told MK. – As soon as it appeared, I immediately looked at what and in what order it was proposed to teach in each grade from 5th to 9th. In principle, the material is structured competently, logically, and understandably. It was easy for me to adapt my experience and already developed style of teaching the subject to this program. And at least I know that all my colleagues now teach according to the same model. It’s easier in every way.

– Previously, everything related to the school curriculum was vague and unclear. There were no specifics. It was as if we were moving by touch. Now it looks like a single solid foundation on which our education, and therefore the future of our children, rests,” says Maria Alexandrovna, a history and social studies teacher from Primorye.