Education In Transition

At the end of April, the Prosecutor General's Office, which is responsible for overseeing government compliance with the law, made a report to the Ministry of Education that revealed some monstrous figures. The report was the result of a survey of the entire Russian Federation and an in-depth look at the districts of Tula and Tver.


Of course, the report did not contain any real news for the ministry. The people there already know perfectly well what percentage of school buildings need to be condemned, what percentage of our children are studying in multiple shifts because of overcrowding and understaffing, and so on. The Education Ministry also understands that the incredibly expensive process of raising children in state orphanages is producing the most lamentable results.


The distressing increase in crime by children and juveniles and the alarming number of children not attending school are also generally known. One could perhaps argue with the Prosecutor's claim that 1.7 million Russian children are not going to school, but -- as Education Minister Yevgeny Tkachenko correctly says -- even if that figure is five times too high, it is a tragic situation nonetheless.


It may be possible, however, to accuse the Prosecutor's office of demagogy: After all, these people know better than anyone else that the same report could have been written 10 or 15 years ago when it was impossible to expel even incorrigible delinquents. Thousands of such teenagers were enrolled in their classes and were even given passing grades (since virtually 100 percent of all Soviet students graduated) even though in reality they did not study or even attend classes. The only difference between then and now is that in those days that information was discussed only in top secret meetings and nowadays you can read about it in the newspapers.


Naturally there are costs associated with the freedom that our schools have finally been granted. Many educators understood that freedom very simple-mindedly: If you don't want to learn, get out! They did not really stop to think that that dropout would just start hanging out on the same dark streets along which these teachers and their children walk home at night. Now the problem is to balance the new freedom with some natural, unavoidable limitations.


Everyone, of course, thinks that it is bad when teachers make parents pay for extra lessons. But are teachers really obligated to donate their free time to do extra work with students without pay? And canour schools really pay for this work?


Is it because everything is fine that our schools are renting out space that they desperately need themselves and are turning their basements into warehouses and their playgrounds into parking lots? How else are they going to find the money needed for computers, video players and repairs to school buildings? And what if the teachers refuse to work for a pittance? If there is no money, the schools will just have to wait.


Yes, there are thousands of children who have fallen through the cracks in the school system. But is the Education Ministry to blame for millions of people having abandoned their homes and become refugees? In a perfect world, the government would take precisely these children under its protection and support them while their parents got back on their feet.


Instead, however, the state spends huge sums of money supporting orphans, or -- more accurately -- children who have been taken away from their alcoholic or irresponsible parents. There is not a single developed country in the world with such a practice as this: Throughout the world, practically as soon as a child is available for adoption, there immediately appear eager prospective parents. In Russia, though, more than 100,000 such children sit and wait at state expense. Naturally, virtually all of them have health problems, but the former restrictions on adopting sick children have already been lifted.


However, there are virtually no Russians willing to take a physically or mentally ill child into their homes. And when foreigners appear who are willing to adopt such children, the Prosecutor's Office rears up and looks on the matter in the same way that it considers the export of aluminum or precious red mercury. Is it not hypocritical, then, for them to come complaining to the Education Ministry? That ministry, by the way, has for a long time now been pointing out that it is criminal to release children from orphanages at the age of 15, but no one has offered the necessary funding to enable the ministry to keep them until they turn 18.


There is also nothing surprising in the fact that so many orators under red banners are shouting about these horrors, cherishing the fond dream of returning to the good old days when no one spoke about these problems. But when the Prosecutor's Office, intentionally painting everything black, begins talking about "catastrophe," the situation becomes dangerous.


Schools -- like all of Russia -- are going through a difficult period. Some things must be gotten rid of and some must be acquired. All you have to do is leaf through the dozens of new textbooks and see the latest pedogogical methods in order to understand that education in Russia is not dying. It is moving forward. As before, education remains free and accessible to all. For the first time, the state has defined minimal educational standards that all schools must meet. Despite all the difficulties, the government has found money in the state emergency fund to cope with the most pressing problems in the area of education. There is definitely no reason to panic. We simply need to work to overcome the obstacles that arise, and that is exactly what is being done.





Irina Ovchinnikova is a reporter for Izvestia. She contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.