The Ministry of Education said that schools will have commissions to resolve disputes

The bill on protecting the rights of teachers, also known as the anti-telephone bill, is being painted with new details. After all, according to it, mobile phones will still be taken away from children “to regulate the educational process.” The Minister of Education said that in the near future a commission will be established in each school to resolve disputes between teachers, students and their parents.

It is already known that the draft amendments to the law “On Education”, introduced on October 27, will undergo the first reading in the State Duma on November 16. “Special commissions will be created in schools, which, if necessary, parents can contact directly,” said the Minister of Education of the Russian Federation. And he emphasized that the commissions are very important “to ensure that such issues are objectively considered.” The minister added that the text of the amendments has been sent to the regions. Where, most likely, there will be a number of changes.

Amendments to the basic federal law, according to which the entire life of schools in the country is built, are designed to protect the rights of teachers and strengthen the authority of the profession. According to the new version, teachers “have the right to respect for human dignity, protection from all forms of physical and mental violence, and personal insult.”

Who would argue, given the dozens of stories with inadequate mothers and fathers and uncontrollable students, in which the teacher turned out to be the last one, the victim, or even a defendant in some case. And, indeed, almost undisguised by law.

On the other hand, why does the strengthening of the rights of one participant in the educational process come at the expense of weakening the rights of another, that is, students? According to international legal standards, children are weak parties due to their special vulnerability.

However, the proposal to take away phones from schoolchildren not only in the classroom was approved by the highest legislative body, the Federation Council. “Remove (video) on the phone, post (on the Internet), make the teacher an object of ridicule, bullying, unfortunately, this happened,” argues the need to introduce a “telephone” amendment, the head of the Federation Council Committee on Science, Education and Culture, Liliya Gumerova.

Teacher protection commissions located at schools are also difficult to imagine. In schools, all decisions and steps are subordinated to the directorate and the founder, who is usually a representative of the municipal educational authority. Perhaps the creation of such commissions will speed up the consideration of emergency situations, but only in the style of “no matter what happens.” They will try to sweep serious incidents under the carpet.

And of course, such a dispute commission will not give anything to the teacher if a conflict situation arises with the school administration itself or a higher educational organization.

Since the upcoming conflict commissions are not known in detail, MK decided to turn to international experience. Are there commissions anywhere else to resolve disputes between students and their parents and teachers, and how do they generally protect the rights of teachers?

In the United States, there are legal organizations that specialize in providing legal support to teachers in case of conflicts with students or their parents. They not only represent the interests of teachers in court, but also help resolve disputes out of court.

In Canada there is a “Committee for Conflict Resolution in Schools” and a “Center for Mediation in Education”. In Australia, a “School Conflict Resolution Service” and a “Center for Dispute Resolution in Education” have been created. These are independent organizations that are not subordinate to educational departments.

But, of course, the main regulator of teachers’ rights around the world are trade unions; there is no need to reinvent the wheel here. In China, for example, there are several trade unions, including the China Teachers Union (CTU) and the China Education Union (CEU), which represent the interests of teachers in the country.

In Europe, there are several trade unions in each country, some are united in the European Federation of Education. There is a united National Education Union in Great Britain, the French Teachers’ Federation and many others.

It is clear that these associations are not ideal and not all teachers are always happy. Sometimes they feel that they are just paying fees in vain, and their rights are not sufficiently represented. But it is important that these are independent organizations.