Social studies expelled from secondary school – Kommersant FM

Excluding social studies for sixth through eighth grades will not deprive children of knowledge. At least, Russian Presidential Assistant Vladimir Medinsky is sure of this. However, teachers interviewed by Kommersant FM disagree with this. According to the official, the necessary information will be included in history textbooks. In addition, students will fully master social studies in high school. The fact that discipline would be completely removed from the curriculum for grades six to eight became known in February 2024 from a draft order published by the Ministry of Education. On the public discussion website, the document received almost 1.2 thousand dislikes and only 15 likes. According to it, ninth-graders will spend less time on social studies than on life safety: out of the 136 hours per year allotted to the subject now, they will leave 34 hours.

The initiative threatens failure of the main state exams (OGE) and the development of legal illiteracy among teenagers, lawyer, tutor, author of the educational project “Our Society” Dmitry Kokorikov is sure: “Children aged 15-16 years study in the ninth grade. It turns out that only at this age do they learn that at the age of 14 they began to face criminal liability for some crimes, and at the age of 16 they became administratively liable. Or maybe there won’t be any law at all in the ninth grade curriculum, maybe they won’t know about it even then.

There was a discussion of this initiative on the official website, and people often asked the question: how will children then write the OGE when there are only 34 hours left for this subject? And as a response, it was published that we are now not talking about the program at all, but discussing the number of hours.

What will be poured in the remaining hours is, as it were, the next stage, which we will learn about after some time. And, I’m afraid, we will be horrified, judging by unofficial information.

For example, the program of a new subject that was introduced at the university, “Fundamentals of Russian Statehood,” talks about some super-features of the Russian economic system. But it is not given in basic terms, for example, what an “economic system” is in general, that it can be market, traditional and command. The entire base is removed, and only some super-unique feature of Russia remains, which often has, to put it mildly, a controversial scientific basis, some kind of “Russian studies.”

Some teachers and school principals, on condition of anonymity, told Kommersant FM that despite changes in the program they plan to independently introduce schoolchildren to social studies. In particular, touch on topics of law and social relations in history lessons, as well as invite ninth-graders to additional electives to prepare for the Unified State Exam in social studies.

Parents are already expressing dissatisfaction with the initiative and are allocating a budget for tutors, shared school history and social studies teacher Marina Sharova: “Many are very sorry, they are afraid that this will fall on their shoulders in terms of money, in terms of tutoring, because when entering many faculties, the list of exams includes social science. But I wouldn’t worry so much, because the Unified State Exam in this discipline is difficult, but you can learn in two years and pass it. I’m not sure about the OGE.

For example, from the sixth grade we teach logic. It is almost impossible to do this in one year. The knowledge base will be filled, but not the value, sensory base. These internal conflicts are the basis for the formation of conformism.

So they want to see me as a law-abiding citizen? Please, here is the correct knowledge for the Unified State Exam. But internally what is going on there is unknown. In the long term, we will get a rollback, an increase in absenteeism, and legal nihilism.”

Meanwhile, social studies is the most popular subject for passing the Unified State Exam. In Moscow, for example, 32 thousand graduates chose it in 2023; for comparison, 22 thousand schoolchildren preferred English. The picture is the same nationwide: as calculated by the Center for Financial and Economic Solutions in Education at the Higher School of Economics, there are three times more people taking the Unified State Exam in social studies than those who choose physics.

Experts admit that in the sixth and seventh grades the social studies program is indeed quite extensive. But lack of discipline in eighth grade will create fundamental gaps in knowledge. It will be impossible to make up for lost time within the framework of history lessons, stressed Unified State Exam researcher and leader of the Independent Education Laboratory project Anton Chubukov:

“We now study history linearly: from the ancient world in the fifth grade to the 20th century in the 10th-11th grade. Accordingly, in the sixth to ninth grades, schoolchildren study traditional society, which we practically no longer have, Ancient Rus’, the society of medieval Russia. Now social realities are completely different.

In addition, over the past two years the situation in society and in the world has changed greatly. But from one correct statement about the radically changed world and social situation, it still does not automatically follow that the school course must necessarily be changed and necessarily in exactly this way.”

Meanwhile, new history textbooks for grades five to nine are ready, but have not yet been published. They are planned to be printed by the end of the year, said presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky. In August 2023, the authorities have already presented updated manuals for high schools. There, sections devoted to the period since the 1970s were rewritten, and a new one was added, including the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

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Elizaveta Skobtsova