Vladimir Putin's opening remarks:

Dear Colleagues,

This is the third meeting of the Government Commission on the Socio-Economic Development of the North Caucasus, and the subject of today's meeting is the youth and youth policy. We will be talking about our young citizens, on whom the country's successful development directly depends. Our development as a strong, united, and prosperous nation will depend on the youth of today. The future belongs to the youth!

I would like to emphasise that ensuring the broad involvement of young people in addressing our common problems, providing them with access to education and creating opportunities for their professional self-actualisation are among the key priorities of our state policy. We intend to pursue these goals here in the North Caucasus. At the same time, we need to understand clearly that this region is very distinctive and has its own ethnic and cultural particularities. It is home to over 150 ethnicities with their own customs, traditions and religious beliefs. Just imagine -- 150 ethnicities!

We also need to remember that as a result of the social and political instability of the 1990s, entire generations in the North Caucasus republics were torn from a normal life. They were deprived of the opportunity to pursue a modern education and communicate with their peers from other regions, which resulted in their complete cultural and educational isolation. I see that Mr Kadyrov (head of the Chechen Republic) is nodding.

I just had a meeting with young people at the Mashuk youth camp (I will talk more about this later), and recalled my first visit to Chechnya sometime back in 2000. We visited a school, where we were met by local village residents. Children there hadn't been going to school for several years, there was not a single desk at that school or even a chair to sit on. Those were the conditions there at the time.

A lack of jobs and positive prospects for the younger generation has had an impact on the overall atmosphere in the region, and has contributed to extremism, crime, ethnic violence and terrorism. We need to undercut those who seek to steer the youth of the North Caucasus away from tasks of peaceful development, who try to rob them of their future and make them pawns in someone else's game.

I am confident that the talents and abilities of young people and their capacity to implement their ideas can and must be directed towards creation, towards the peaceful development of their native land. Therefore, our priority plans include improving the quality of education and making it available for everyone in the region. We will particularly focus on secondary schools, because the character and moral values are formed mostly during the school years. It is true that the material and technical equipment of schools in North Caucasus remains unsatisfactory. There are shortages of computers, gyms, canteens and schools per se.

Let me remind you that we have adopted a very important decision to assign 120 billion roubles to upgrade regional educational systems during the next two years. This year we allocated 20 billion roubles to this end, of which 2.6 billion went to the North Caucasus Federal District. I would like to point out to the Ministry of Education and Science, heads of Russian regions and Alexander Khloponin in particular, that the targeted use of these funds must be tightly monitored and commitments to raise teachers’ salaries honoured. Let me emphasise that this is a prerequisite for receiving the allocated federal funds.

Another important point is that young people living in the North Caucasus region should be brought up in the spirit of respect for the culture and traditions of their own people, as well as other peoples living in Russia. These values should be taught since young age. Notably, students of the 4^th and 5^th grades in 21 Russian regions, including Karachayevo-Circassia, the Chechen Republic and the Stavropol Territory have been studying the basics of religions and secular ethics on a trial basis since last year. We will be summing up the results at the end of the year. I want the Ministry of Education to take this experience into consideration.

Next. We will do our best to facilitate training of young people in the North Caucasus in all professions that enjoy high demand on the labour market. The first thing that needs to be done here is to align professional training with the needs of the regional labour market – we have discussed it in our earlier conversation. There was a young woman who said that she couldn’t find any employment since graduating from university. Therefore, I would like to ask the corresponding ministries and departments together with regional heads and development corporations of the North Caucasus, as well as major Russian companies, to promptly draft a set of measures to expand the number of primary and secondary vocational schools.

I would like to point out to heads of Russian regions that primary and secondary vocational training is your direct responsibility, and you should make sure that it is consistent with the regional economic needs.

Certainly, it is very important to have high-quality educational institutions in the North Caucasus. To this end, we have decided to establish the North Caucasus Federal University.

The university will bring together several educational institutions located in this federal district with about 45,000 students. That way, we will strongly encourage the development of academic science in the region and the establishment of strong science and education schools. This will boost the educational level for both undergraduate and postgraduate students and help form a high-quality source of supply of trained employees for industry, power engineering, tourism and the resort business. Certainly, the federal university must become the focal point for education and spiritual and cultural dialogue between young people. It should act as a higher education facility that addresses these challenging tasks. Universities in Russia play a major role in this regard, and this is particularly important in the Caucasus.

Let me emphasise that self-actualisation of young people in the North Caucasus is impossible without their active participation in public life. Therefore, it’s very important to support all their business and social initiatives, which are instrumental in bringing constructive solutions to the problems facing their towns and villages and the entire region. I have already mentioned the Caucasus youth forum “Mashuk.” This year, it brought together over 2,000 participants, including young people from other countries, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Ukraine.

I believe that Mashuk can become a good regional venue to evaluate the results of youth policies conducted by republican, federal and regional authorities.

To conclude, I would like to say the following. The work on the state programme “The Development of the North Caucasus Federal District until 2025” is nearing completion. Young people should play a major role in its implementation. I believe we must use the opportunities of the Russian Popular Front to promote professional, vibrant and pro-active young people to local governments. I spoke with them and one of them had the following to say: “We nominate our candidates through the Popular Front, including for the State Duma elections, but I don’t think we will ever see people representing the youth of the Caucasus in the Duma.” I know that you are in charge of drawing up the list of candidates and many of you are active members of United Russia. Please make sure that these lists include promising and efficient young people from the North Caucasus who have positive ideas about the development of their native region and entire Russia.

Let’s move on to today’s agenda. Please go ahead, Mr Fursenko.

Andrei Fursenko: Thank you.

Mr Putin, colleagues, it has already been mentioned that lack of appealing jobs is one of the problems plaguing the region. Among other things, this is due to weak infrastructure across all levels of education. I will begin with the North Caucasus’ weakest link, which is preschool education. Various forms of preschool education cater to 37% of the local population. Even in the Stavropol Territory the coverage is slightly above 50%. This is the lowest figure as compared with the rest of Russia. The situation in Ingushetia, where preschool coverage is under 10%, is the worst in Russia. The future looks bleak, too, despite the specifics of the district, where many preschoolers stay at home and are looked after by their mothers and grandmothers.

Nevertheless, we cannot accept the forecast of having fewer than 58% of children over five enrolled in preschool institutions in 2013 and fewer than 70% in 2020, because senior levels at preschools get children ready for primary school. Federal, regional and local authorities strive to tackle this issue. In particular, the initial allocation of one billion roubles from the federal budget to support preschool education is intended for the creation of new places in kindergartens and preschools. A portion of these funds will go to the North Caucasus, but only 50 million roubles.

At the same time, the ministry established the so-called training sites in the Stavropol Territory and Kabardino-Balkaria. These preschool facilities will be used to refine new forms of work and train kindergarten teachers and counselors. About 100 million roubles have been allocated to this end as part of the targeted federal programme. About 700 specialists will be trained at these sites, but it’s not enough. On the one hand, together with the regions, we introduce new forms of preschool education, including family-run kindergartens, fast-track training and part-time daycare centres. However, we expect that the funds allocated per your instruction, Mr Putin – I’m talking about loans to the regions in order to create new places in kindergartens – will go to the North Caucasus, too, in order to renovate the premises and reinstate  kindergartens in the buildings that used to house them but were later put to other uses and perhaps start building new kindergartens.

Schools in the North Caucasus are in a much better shape. We can see that school education has been on the rise over the past three years. Lack of job openings at district schools is among such good signs. Some time ago, teachers were leaving rural areas, but now this outflow has come to a halt, which is due to raising teachers’ salaries, among other things. In addition, local regions take appropriate measures and start new projects. However, we haven’t had much success in attracting young teachers. Last year, we started new projects for attracting young graduates from teachers’ training universities to schools that experience teacher shortages. The project was to be implemented by the federal centre and the regions together. All told, a thousand special grants were established for young teachers. The district submitted 55 applications, 47 of them from Chechnya. 51 applicants qualified after thorough reviews – so 47 grants went to Chechnya, two to Dagestan and two to North Ossetia-Alania. As for other aspects of the project – young specialists’ support and housing, the regions have not followed through on their assignments. We expect similar projects to follow, and we call on the regional governors to pay greater attention to them.

Mr Putin, you have talked about the modernisation project for regional education systems, which envisages increasing teachers’ salaries and upgrading all schools. More than 100,000 teachers in the North Caucasus Federal District will have a salary increase. Four out of the seven regions in the district intend to match the average salary for teachers to the regional average starting in September, while the other three regions will increase teachers’ salaries by 30%.

We discussed the projects at seven national conferences, which included representatives of the federal district and its regions and who took an active part. Though Mr Putin said it already, I repeat his demand to pay special attention to implementing this project. Salary increases should have pride of place on the agendas of staff meetings, which all schools will hold in August, as it must be made clear to every teacher that the pay raise comes with an improvement in the quality of education. Children should leave school better educated and ready for adulthood and further studies.

Safety measures are also being taken at municipal schools. Federal allocations for this purpose were 230 million roubles last year and 260 million this year, though even these sizeable funds are not enough to repair dilapidating school buildings or replace them with new ones. Nevertheless, a change for the better is evident and, as we know from the regions, teachers and parents are aware of it. This is very important.

There is another problem – possibly, the main problem from an economic point of view: the development of primary and secondary vocational training, which is one of the critical aspects of the Education national project. This programme received 600 million roubles in federal targeted funding, and so eleven resource centres for primary and secondary vocational training were built. The cutting-edge equipment at these schools provides efficient training methods in the trades with the greatest demand.

We know that this is not enough, and the regions of the North Caucasus Federal District asked us to establish more resource centres to add to the current ones, which are very good and can be the basis for new centres. The latest competition within the framework of our federal targeted programme Education supported the Stavropol Territory’s proposal to establish an agricultural resource centre. A competition has also been announced for the establishment of a tourist service development centre in the district.

We hold these targeted competitions in the North Caucasus Federal District because many of its primary and secondary vocational schools are underfunded and so underprivileged in the contest with their counterparts in other federal districts. That is why we arrange special competitions with the scant funds we have. I think it would be worthwhile to return to the prospect of grants for such competitions in this district – or, possibly, we can increase the funding of the federal targeted programme for the development of education for this purpose.

Universities are an essential part of professional training in any region. They receive support in many fields – suffice it to name decrees Nos. 218 and 219 on the creation of the innovation development infrastructure in higher education, and the promotion of contacts between industries and university research. There are five jointly used centres in the North Caucasus Federal District. Young researchers with academic degrees have received grants and other targeted support. Ten universities in the district are part of the innovation development programme for eight corporations with state participation. These businesses will provide funding directly to the universities for research and tuition. In compliance with Federal Law No. 217, the district’s universities established 32 small businesses with a total of 200 high-tech jobs. This might be a small number, but it is only the beginning, and the district is setting an example.

I would like to say a few words about the efficiency of higher education. The district presently has 67 universities and 61 branches, not all of which are efficient enough. Alongside support of the best, which I mentioned, the ministry will go on and reorganise the weaker establishments. The Federal Service for Supervision of Education will conduct a large-scale review of the district’s higher education network within the year. Based on the results, some university branches might be closed or re-affiliated with the more successful universities.

Vladimir Putin: We have just talked to students and the presidential envoy here. There are 74 university branches…

Andrei Fursenko: We are starting the review quite…

Vladimir Putin: So there are 74 branches. The total enrolment was 34,000 in Soviet times, but now it exceeds 170,000 – which means that they offer not education but sheer fraud.

Andrei Fursenko: We have arranged everything for an inspection with the presidential envoy’s office and the federal district authorities.

Vladimir Putin: Inspection, you say… Be sure it isn’t a waste of time!

Andrei Fursenko: We will close any that aren’t operating properly. But certainly, we have to mind the existing rules.

Vladimir Putin: They should unite in major education clusters. Alexander Khloponin (deputy prime minister and presidential envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District) says that some of these schools don’t have anything but a computer and a chair in the front. Young people who go there to study don’t do anything. They just waste time and money, and no one takes them on after graduation. That’s the problem.

Andrei Fursenko: Mr Putin, you spoke about the establishment of the North Caucasus Federal University. The decree has just been endorsed, and we are working to implement it. The principal challenge is the coordination of the development programme with district and regional authorities. The success of this innovation based education and research centre will depend on this coordination. Though the decree envisages basing the new university on existing Stavropol universities, it will work for the entire federal district. This is why I think all the regions here should take part in creating the programme. At any rate, the Ministry of Education intends to attract them to the job to the greatest possible extent. All the universities and the entire business community in the district should be involved.

The new university should be up to international standards. Upgrading the teaching staff is one approach in attaining that goal. Upgrades should concern not only the federal university staff but also the entire professional training system. The ministry proposes…

Vladimir Putin: It should necessarily involve secondary schools, too. I think the North Caucasus republics need a targeted programme for schoolteachers. The usual efforts won’t suffice to upgrade them here. Please pay the utmost attention to it.

Andrei Fursenko: We intend to step up the programme with regard to young schoolteachers, Mr Putin.

As for professional training, we intend to involve professors from leading Russian-based universities and, at the same time, arrange the training of specialists from the North Caucasus abroad and employ foreign professors wherever necessary. We have developed certain proposals that we can start implementing even now along with the presidential envoy’s staff and relevant regional agencies.

Almost all of these projects are being implemented, to varying extents. If they are successful, the district will receive an efficient network of comprehensive training for specialists that any business would be glad to employ. This year’s federal allocations to the district for these purposes alone exceed 13 billion roubles, and we don’t expect less than 18 billion next year. I think the district will get even more funds.

One of our essential goals now is to spend the funding to the greatest possible effect – that is, to train specialists, create the infrastructure, and increase teachers’ salaries, and their work should improve with every pay raise. My report is over.

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Vladimir Putin’s concluding remarks:

The young people proposed (during Putin’s meeting with representatives of youth organisations in the North Caucasus Federal District) to create a special federal programme for the support of the youth in the North Caucasus. Let’s think it over. The matter does not necessarily require a federal programme. We might use available resources, but the youth problem is among our critical challenges, so work with the youth should be given priority. We are not paying enough attention even though people below 30 make up a half of the district’s population, even more than a half in some republics. So the work with the youth in this part of the country should have a greater priority than it does now.

They offered another idea I liked. We are not establishing enough sport centres countrywide, and they are especially lacking in the North Caucasus. Now, the young people think we should not merely build sport facilities but combine them with cultural centres. I think this is an interesting idea. We should design new centres that combine athletics and culture from the start. Culture and sports should go hand in hand. Thank you very much.