Schools offered to resubordinate and lead

What school reforms should be expected in the near future

Speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin advocates the transfer of schools from the municipal level of subordination to the regional one. He proposes to “raise higher” the status of leadership in order to solve the problem of shortage of teachers and improve the condition of schools. Read “to increase funding”. However, experts fear that the real purpose of the resubordination is to increase state control over schools.

At first, Volodin turned to the Minister of Education of the Russian Federation, Sergei Kravtsov, with a proposal to reassign schools. “In order to resolve issues related to the material and technical base at the expense of the municipalities,” the initiator explained. Like, local budgets are entirely subsidized, and regional ones are rich … And the personnel issue with the missing teachers cannot be solved without the regional level. Neither the long-suffering teacher’s salary can be dealt with, nor the teachers’ apartments.

This is not the first time that the speaker of the lower house of parliament is concerned about the fate of Russian education. In the summer, Volodin, at the forefront of the discussion about the abolition of the Bologna system, arranged a vote on the Web whether to cancel the Bologna or not. And then he headed the “round table” in the Duma, dedicated to the national higher education. He also spoke actively about the average, albeit a little contradictory. He recalled the good old best education in the USSR, then he praised the tsarist gymnasiums.

Now the speaker of the State Duma also conducted a public poll on the reassignment of schools on the channel in the social network. The topic is formulated as follows: “Today, schools belong to the municipal level of government. There are problems: the lack of teachers and the state of the schools themselves. To solve these problems, responsibility for schools must be raised to the regional level.” 86% of Volodin’s subscribers voted in favor, 6% against, and another 6% said they didn’t care. In total, about 100 thousand people voted on the channel.

The idea to raise the level of subordination of schools by transferring it to the regions is not new. In 2017, the then Minister of Education and Science Olga Vasilyeva came up with the same initiative. She wanted all public schools to be directly run by the state and operate to the same standard. That is, not for any improvement in financing, but for building public administration, that very vertical of power. 5 years ago, the subordination did not take place, although 16 regions were ready to enter the pilot program. Perhaps the initiative was hindered by Vasilyeva’s departure from the ministry and the division of the Ministry of Education into two departments. Perhaps a pandemic intervened…

“Today, this idea has been revived not because of the underfunding of schools, but because the state wants it that way,” says Yevgeny Serov, an expert in the field of education. – Now most schools in the Russian Federation are subordinate to local departments of education. Not even the Ministry of Education, it is not for nothing that it sends out to schools not decrees, but recommendations. Any major change, such as the unification of the school curriculum or the raising of the flag and anthem, must be passed by law. It’s long and tedious. In addition, among the so-called “public” schools, there are 13% that are not directly subordinate to the municipalities. There are departmental schools, schools attached to universities like the Higher School of Economics Lyceum or schools under the President’s Department of Education. They are controlled by Rosobrnadzor and municipalities, but in fact they are subordinate to the founders.

As for financing, Moscow is already doing well with it, while state projects are working in the regions. Overhaul, for example. Look, there are 40,000 schools in the Russian Federation. If we take away Moscow, St. Petersburg, large cities, there will be about 30 thousand. 7.5 thousand of the most needy will modernize by 2027. And there are other programs – for the repair of facades, courtyards, or just the “stuffing” of schools. There is a program for rural schools in small towns, a Zemsky Teacher program with a million certificate.

It is possible that resubordination “under the regions” will solve some problems for some, but money will be taken away from others. As, you know, “you have to take and share everything.” Perhaps someone will benefit from this. But the risks of further consolidation of schools in cities and optimization of schools in the outback are great. And plantings everywhere the only true opinion. Not in vain, less than 2 weeks ago, Dmitry Peskov said that “talking about important things” in schools is treated formally. He said that if the state does not talk to the youth, then “another state will talk to them.”

On the sidelines of the two ministries of education of the Russian Federation, they argue a lot about what reforms to expect in the near future. Many did not believe that a single program would be introduced in schools, but it happened. On the other hand, the opponents of “Westernism” could not push through the complete abolition of the Bologna system in universities, it has been left for now. There is also a rumor that the two ministries will be merged again more and more actively. “Under Falkov, the chair has been shaking for a long time for various reasons,” an anonymous source told MK. – And they are not particularly satisfied with the Ministry of Education, schools allow themselves a lot. But what Volodin says about education can mean anything. He can voice the interests of anti-liberals or prepare the ground for a new minister … Or, with the same probability, simply speak out as part of the information agenda.”