The certificate is no longer easy to get

The deputies of the State Duma unanimously adopted in the first reading a draft law on the labor education of Russian schoolchildren. Amendments to the law “On Education” suggest that socially useful work will become a mandatory part of the secondary education program. Schoolchildren will be involved in “planting plantings on school grounds, decorating a classroom, assembly and sports hall for the event, helping libraries and museums.” At the same time, the administration of educational institutions will no longer need parental consent for this. The deputies emphasize that the changes are aimed at combating the “ideology of consumption” and at the sustainable growth of the Russian economy. However, representatives of the pedagogical community remind that “the ability to navigate in society is formed in labor only when this labor itself is a personal voluntary choice and a conscious decision.”

The proposal to introduce compulsory labor education in May 2022 was made by deputies of the State Council of Udmurtia. In their appeal to the State Duma and the government of the Russian Federation, they pointed to the positive experience of the Soviet school in educating a society that loves work, and proposed to return school workshops, industrial parks, student production teams, labor teams, summer labor and recreation camps to educational use. “Unfortunately, the reforms in the field of education have led to the fact that the goal of education in schools has become not the education and upbringing of a whole person, but the provision of so-called educational services,” the Udmurt parliamentarians stated.

Exactly one year later, a group of deputies to the federal parliament bill was introducedwhich creatively develops the ideas of regional legislators (one of the authors of the document is the deputy head of the United Russia faction, State Duma deputy from Udmurtia Andrey Isaev).

“Only a child who knows how and loves to work will be able to take place in adult life in a profession, in a family, in society,” the authors sum up the basis for the initiative in an explanatory note.

They refer to the authority of “one of the founders of pedagogy in our country, Konstantin Ushinsky”: “Education, if it wants happiness for a person, should educate him not for happiness, but prepare him for the work of life.” The proposed novels, the parliamentarians explain, include participation in socially useful work among the duties of students, taking into account age and psychophysical characteristics.

On Wednesday, during the consideration of the bill at a plenary session, Deputy Chairman of the Duma Committee on Youth Policy United Russia Party Mikhail Kiselev (also one of the authors of the initiative) explained that socially useful work means “planting plantings on school grounds, decorating a classroom, assembly and sports hall for the event assistance to libraries and museums.

“Surely everyone present had a chance to erase from the board, be on duty in the classroom, take care of the flowers in the school flower beds and help in the dining room,” Mr. Kiselev addressed his colleagues. “Our rich and vibrant school life consisted of this. So why do we deprive our children of the opportunity to develop comprehensively?

Olga Kazakova (ER), Chairwoman of the Committee on Education, pointed out that today the concept of “labor” can be found only twice in the law on education. “In the nineties, such an attitude to work was formed, a conscious one was formed,” she explained. “Enterprises were closed, the ideology of consumption was instilled in young people, and, of course, this did not positively affect the upbringing process in any way.” According to her, now the country faces completely different tasks: “The President sets before us the tasks of sustainable economic growth, the creation of enterprises, the creation of jobs. We will not solve this without changing the approaches to training and education.”

Deputy Biysultan Khamzaev (ER) suggested the possibility of excesses on the ground, asking his colleagues how to prevent “schoolchildren from building dachas for our directors”?

The authors of the amendments hastened to reassure him: all labor activity should be carried out in the school itself or in the territory adjacent to it.

Communist Nikolai Kolomeytsev (representatives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation warmly supported the initiative) proposed not to “cut the cat’s tail piece by piece”, but to reform the entire system of secondary education at once, including educational standards. “It’s not enough to change the proposals in the law, do you understand?” Mr. Kolomeitsev appealed to the consciousness of his colleagues. However, the communist did not specify what else, in his opinion, needs to be done, specifying only that it is worth focusing on the novel by Nikolai Ostrovsky “How the Steel Was Tempered”, which “educates selfless labor.” Oleg Smolin (KPRF) said that he studied at a school for children with visual impairments, and assured that health conditions did not prevent schoolchildren from doing socially useful work.

“There was not only duty, we not only planted trees, shrubs and flowers, and not only studied in carpentry and locksmith workshops, but also participated in the construction of a new school building,” the deputy emphasized.

A rather heated discussion ended with a unanimous vote: all 392 members of the State Duma present at the meeting supported the amendments. In a conversation with Kommersant, Mr. Kiselev noted that another initiative would soon be submitted to the State Duma – to introduce not only socially useful, but also industrial labor into schools.

Director of the Nizhny Novgorod school No. 800 and head of the center for the development of educational systems “Smart School” Mark Sartan recalled that even now any school has the opportunity to involve children in socially useful work, if such is provided for by the educational program of the school. “Now it is proposed to remove this restriction, and it will be possible to bind for the listed noble purposes,” he said in a conversation with Kommersant. “But one must understand that no coercion brings up anything but a feeling of humility or protest. A sense of belonging to a single cause, the development of an active life position, the ability to navigate in society are formed in labor only when this labor itself is a personal voluntary choice and a conscious decision. It is quite possible to organize it in this way within the framework of educational work and within the same educational program.

“This will be one of those educational laws that have appeared in large numbers in recent years, but, fortunately for schools, do not reach them,” Vsevolod Lukhovitsky, chairman of the interregional trade union “Teacher”, believes. “The only thing that can change in this regard is : if it suddenly occurs to the leadership somewhere that children, as in Soviet times, should, for example, be sent for potatoes.

Emilia Gabdullina, Polina Yachmennikova