“We must create an environment in which gifted young people from low-income families are able to reach their potential for their own benefit and for the benefit of the nation. If a new student has good potential and skills, but cannot afford to buy bread or butter or meat – excuse me, but that student will not be able to perform well in his studies. He will have to find a way to earn some money, and that will interfere with the learning process.”

“I want to stress again that the government continues to provide full funding to schools. The right to a free general education is sealed in our Constitution and no one can change this. If additional direct-pay services are offered, the conditions must be outlined clearly and transparently.”

“Provision of housing, the level of salaries, and the modernisation of the system itself and its material-and-technical foundations are designed to raise the prestige of teachers.”

Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Yury Trutnev presented to Vladimir Putin the first sample of pre-historic water obtained by a Russian polar expedition from an ice-covered lake in the Antarctic. The water may be more than one million years old. The prime minister referred to this as a great event and suggested thinking of how to recognise the members of the expedition.

The conference participants discussed the relocation of people from dilapidated housing at the Korkinsky open pit mine in the Chelyabinsk Region. Putin said that the government had allocated 2 billion roubles for the emergency relocation. He also criticised the government of Udmurtia for failing to promptly repair housing and other facilities in the republic damaged during the explosions at a nearby military depot last year.