Schools take higher – Newspaper Kommersant No. 227 (7428) of 12/07/2022

The State Duma approved in the first reading a bill that would allow the transfer of schools from the municipal to the regional level. The deputies believe that this will create “conditions for the introduction of an effective model of centralized management in the education system.” Experts agree that this could help streamline school management. But they warn that this is a complex and lengthy administrative procedure, which involves a radical change in powers.

A bill providing for the possibility of transferring municipal educational institutions to the regional level was submitted to the State Duma in mid-November. More than 300 deputies headed by speaker Vyacheslav Volodin and leaders of all factions became its authors. The explanatory note states that now even within one region “there is a lack of uniformity in the quality of education and the necessary degree of unity in the regulation of important issues.” According to the deputies, “the existing long chain of management with the concentration of influence at the grassroots level reduces the maneuverability and controllability of the education system.”

“Today, schools belong to the municipal level of government. And the main problems of educational institutions – the lack of teachers and the state of the schools themselves – are due to the fact that many municipalities are not able to solve these issues, – Mr. Volodin is quoted on the website of the State Duma. creation of a system of incentives that could attract teachers and their families to come to work in villages and small towns. Meanwhile, out of almost 40,000 schools, 56% of our schools are located in rural areas.”

According to the deputies, the ability to transfer municipal schools to the jurisdiction of the subjects will create “conditions for the introduction of an effective regional model of centralized management in the education system.”

And the draft law “will improve the transparency of financing the general education system,” given the “high subsidization of municipalities.”

In 2017, at the initiative of the then head of the Ministry of Education and Science, Olga Vasilyeva, a pilot project was launched in 20 regions to transfer schools from the municipal to the regional level. The conditions were different: in six subjects they tried to transfer both the powers of management and the property of educational organizations, and in five – without property. In the remaining nine regions, it was planned to retain the authority to manage schools with the municipality, but at the same time, local authorities had to conclude agreements with regional officials. Kommersant turned to the Ministry of Education with a request to talk about the results of the pilot project, but they did not answer this question. The deputy head of the Duma Committee on Education, Yana Lantratova, told Kommersant that in the Samara region in 2017, all schools were transferred to the jurisdiction of the region, with the exception of schools in Samara and Togliatti. “As a result, the schools that were under the jurisdiction of the subject showed better results than the schools under the control of the municipality,” the deputy says.

Irina Abankina, chief researcher at the Institute for Education Development at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, considers the experiment unsuccessful because the regions have not been able to completely redistribute powers. She points out that it is not clear from the new bill who will remain the founders of the schools and will be responsible for the entire property complex. “If they want to completely exclude the municipality, then this is a radical change in powers, a very complex and lengthy administrative procedure,” explains Ms. Abankina. “And if the municipality remains the founder, it is not clear what powers it is deprived of.”

Boris Ilyukhin, Director of the Research Center for Education Assessment and Quality Management Systems FIRO RANEPA, points out that municipalities are now the founders of schools, but most of the funding comes through the regions through subsidies. “The possibility of transferring schools to regional subordination will optimize the situation with management,” he argues. “For example, now there are 30 schools in one municipality, and two in another. And in each it is necessary to create methodological services. And the amendments will make it possible to optimize all this into a single methodological service, distribute resources more evenly among schools, and form a unified personnel policy.”

The Ministry of Education told Kommersant that the new management model “contributes to the strengthening and development of a single educational space.”

“It is important to maintain and develop such conditions so that any family, any student, wherever he is, has equal access to high-quality educational programs and is provided with everything necessary for the educational process. And no factors, such as, for example, moving, influenced this, they say. “And here a single coordinating regional role has many positive factors that affect these processes.”

Anna Vasilyeva