Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visits Secondary School No. 7 and meets with the school council during his working trip to Kurgan

“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.”

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held a meeting on the modernisation of general education in the regions

“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.”

At the end of his working trip to the Kurgan Region, Vladimir Putin visits the regional perinatal centre under construction

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visits the construction site of Moscow Youth Centre KVN Planet, talks with participants of KVN Major and Premier Leagues

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin holds a conference call with the authorities of the Chelyabinsk Region and Udmurtia

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.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meets with Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Yury Trutnev

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.