Vladimir Putin's opening remarks:
Ladies and gentlemen, today we will discuss the progress of modernising schools at the regional level. Education Minister Andrei Fursenko, Governor Oleg Bogomolov and I have visited a local school. It is an ordinary school with the typical advantages and disadvantages of most of our schools. Its biggest drawback is the infrastructure, and its biggest advantage is the people who work there. It was very nice to talk with them about their current problems and also to meet with the parents.
School is the foundation that helps people get a good start in life. Education has always been in the public eye as a major part of the country's economic competitiveness. But today the importance of education for enhancing competitiveness for economic development has become a clear priority. It is a crucial factor of competitiveness considering the developments in the global economy, including in Russia.
The demands on education keep growing. While modernising our schools and introducing new approaches and educational technologies, we must also preserve the advantages and undeniable achievements of the Russian system of education, including its fundamental nature. Moreover, it would be a mistake to consider education only as a service system offering a certain amount of knowledge. The goal of education is to turn out literate people who can think and be creative.
The standards of educational culture and the integrity of the educational environment are key indicators of our societal priorities, and which determine our national identity and perspective. The preservation of the common educational space is a crucial condition for the preservation of Russia, a guarantee of civil, ethnic and inter-faith cooperation. I want to stress that a common educational space does not imply a depersonalisation, the erasing of ethnic, cultural or other distinctions, or the dictate of a single state ideology. What we need is to foster common civil values that will bring the Russian nation together, which should definitely be expressed in a school's curriculum. For example, we should teach common approaches and views on basic humanities related subjects like the country's history and the history of the peoples living in the Russian Federation. We must preclude any distortion of historical facts or biased presentation of Russia's history or the history of the ethnic peoples living in our country.
In this regard I would like to draw your attention to the quality and price of textbooks. A parent brought this to our attention during our meeting with the school council today. Over 1,300 textbooks have been recommended for the 2011-2012 academic year. The freedom in teaching methods and educational diversity are certainly a good thing which can be considered one of our achievements. But children transferred from one school to another, often within the same city and sometimes even the same city district, need to buy a whole new set of textbooks, must get used to a different system of teaching, and hence take additional classes. For example, there are nine textbooks on the Russian language and mathematics and 11 literature textbooks recommended for fifth-graders, and 15 math textbooks recommended for seventh-graders. I think the Ministry of Education and Science should look into this problem. We exchanged opinions with Mr Fursenko (Andrei Fursenko, Minister of Education and Science) before this meeting. I am not urging mindless standardisation, but such disparity is not good either. The issue should be considered soberly. We respect a teachers' right to choose a suitable lesson plan, but this flexibility should benefit children and the quality of their education without unduly complicating the life of teachers and students. Mr Fursenko, please review this issue and draft the appropriate proposals.
And here is one more delicate issue I would like to speak about today. In the 1990s, schools found themselves struggling with shortages of funds and were compelled to seek assistance from the students’ families to continue teaching; I mean all kinds of assistance including financial support. Unfortunately, this practice quickly became common and is now taken for granted by many schools. But it doesn’t have to be like this, and parents should not be forced to make “voluntary” contributions.
We have significantly increased government spending on education and schools nationwide, and are changing the very principle of financing: funding follows the student now, which means that the government in fact places an order for educating each student. Schools enjoy greater independence but have a bigger responsibility.
I would like to emphasise that any changes in the education system must be made in an open manner and with public dialogue. We must explain the purpose and meaning of any innovation in this sphere. Dry official instructions and clarifications are certainly not enough. This approach leads to general confusion as people don’t understand what’s going on. Moreover, some people speculate on this misunderstanding by inferring that tuition will gradually stop being free of charge.
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. We need to remove all uncertainty and outline clear boundaries in this sphere, specifying which services are free and which are not. We should avoid any arbitrariness or abuse of people’s rights.
The general criteria here are as follows: all subjects that are included in the required school curriculum are taught free of charge because this service has been financed by the government. Payment in any form is out of the question here. Can students be required to pay? They can, but only if they take additional courses, which are optional and voluntary. Importantly, this must not affect the student’s marks or promotion to the next grade in any way. Incidentally, the new bill on education includes a clause forbidding school teachers to render commercial services related to core subjects in the curriculum at their institution. The bill has been drafted and discussed with the experts. If you have any ideas about this bill, you are welcome to share them today. If anything needs to be added, let’s do it now.
Now let’s discuss the first results of the project to modernise the regional systems of general education. We have identified this as a priority and have started it despite the odds – the shortage of funding and the recent crisis that Russia struggled with in 2009-2010. In fact, in 2011, we were still clawing our way out, and not all sectors have even fully recovered. Still, I must note that the consolidated education budget has nearly doubled over the past five years, reaching 2.342 trillion roubles for 2012.
It is crucial to fundamentally change the condition of Russian schools, while taking recent demographic trends into account. As you know, these trends have been generally positive. Although some problems remain, the general trends are good. Last year, about 1.5 million children started first grade, 33,000 more than in 2010. Five years from now, the number of schoolchildren will increase by 1 million or even more. This means the demand will grow for comfortable, modern schools as well as for highly qualified professionals – teachers.
We have allocated additional federal funds, 120 billion rubles, to modernise education in 2011-2013. We have also agreed with the regional governments that they will provide co-financing for this project. Especially, rural schools will receive twice the financing, which will help rapidly develop a network of effective rural schools across Russia, provide rural residents with education services that meet modern standards. A special effort will be needed to keep small rural schools in areas where it is justified. We all know how sensitive this issue is. Small schools which serve small numbers of students are much more expensive to run than large institutions. At the same time, with Russia’s vast expanses and villages scattered at considerable distance from each other in some areas, let me repeat that small schools can sometimes be the only option and must be preserved where they are justified.
And of course our top priority is to increase teachers’ social status and income because teachers are the cornerstone of the education system. Teachers need to receive a decent salary in order to lead a full life, support a large family and be able to take out a mortgage. Consequently, we have set our first high-priority goal, which is to raise teachers’ wages to the average economic sector wages in any specific Russian region.
What is the current situation like in this area? The relevant statistics, which I have requested and received, indicate that the average teachers’ wages have already exceeded the average economic sector wages in 62 Russian regions. This is quite impressive. In 21 regions, teachers’ wages have increased by 30% or more, but have not yet reached the average economic sector wages. Notably, teachers’ wages in the Kaluga Region exceeded the average regional economic sector wages by 40% in the period from October-December 2011. The wages of Moscow’s teachers topped the average regional economic sector wages by 38%. The break-down for the Chukotka Autonomous Area, the Altai Territory, the Novgorod and Sverdlovsk regions is 30%, 26%, 25% and 25%, respectively.
I would like to emphasise the fact that we have allowed the regions to decide independently on how to disburse the additional funding that is being allocated in order to raise teachers’ wages. In effect, they can raise the wages of teachers who specialise in particular subjects, as well as those of other categories of educators, including speech therapists, psychologists and social educators. Moreover, Russian regions have the authority to raise the rates and wages of nursery school specialists, and specialists in correctional schools and vocational training schools. I would like to point out that 74 Russian regions have exercised this right to date.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that we must fully accomplish the above-mentioned objective in 2012 and raise teachers’ wages to the average wages in other economic sectors. We must accomplish this objective in every Russian region this year. Where is there cause for worry? The government receives appeals from teachers who believe that they have not received the promised wage increases, or who don’t understand the mechanism of calculating such increases. In some cases, the situation is even worse: The concerned specialists have incorrectly explained the relevant mechanism. An opinion poll that was held in January-February 2012 shows that over 75% of teachers reported that they have received a raise. In all, 15% of respondents believe that there has been no raise. An additional 10% were unable to assess whether there were any changes in their incomes. This is quite strange.
I would like to ask regional and local governments to pay the most serious attention to these remarks at the regional level. Any claims towards people who draw attention to these problems are inadmissible. The concerned parties should calmly and clearly explain the essence of the issue to people and help them solve their specific problems. As a result, all questions will take care of themselves. Every teacher must perceive real-life, rather than theoretical, wage increases.
Let’s get down to work.
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Andrei Fursenko: Mr Putin, colleagues, the main aim of the project we have been discussing is to considerably increase teachers’ salaries at general education institutions. As was already mentioned, the principal task is to bring it to at least the average level for each region and to improve the learning environment for schoolchildren. Addressing these two objectives should ensure (and is already ensuring to an extent) that we achieve the system-wide outcome that the project was designed for. By this I mean enhancing the quality of school education and the extent to which people are satisfied with the educational services they are offered.
To implement the project, 120 billion roubles has been allocated from the federal budget for 2011 and 2012. In 2011, the federal budget allocated an additional 20 billion and the funding provided by the regions amounted to 7 billion roubles. Federal subsidies were transferred to the budgets of the constituent entities, to be used for a variety of purposes, such as purchasing equipment, buses, and textbooks, teacher training, carrying out repairs, and so on. What are the main results for 2011? As I said, there was a significant increase in teachers’ salaries. We analysed the pay levels in the education sector, starting from the 1960s. Before the 1960s, the average teachers’ pay was approximately the same as the average pay in the economic sector as a whole. It subsequently began falling behind, with the shortfall reaching 45% by 2000, or almost half the average pay in the economic sector.
Currently the gap is narrowing. We reduced it to 25% by late 2011. This year we are planning to draw teachers’ pay level with the average salary in the economic sector of each region. Generally speaking, the project is pushing up the average pay in the education sector. In keeping with the tasks you set in your article, Mr Putin, we think we will be able to bring the average pay of education workers as a whole close to or level with the average wages in the economic sector by late 2012. This aim will be achieved, albeit with some delay, if we make things better for the higher education institutions. (We have been focusing on the area of preschool education, while secondary schools are in some respects already ahead of schedule.)
All the regions have now converted to the new pay system. But we have been faced with a lack of understanding of the mechanism of pay rises, which has resulted in some discontent. Often teachers saw the salary increases as temporary extras. Earlier today I was stopped by a headmaster and several teachers, who said: “Such and such period will come to a close. Won’t you wind up the pay rises?” They were reassured when I said that the law directed us to monitor the average pay in the economic sector. But I think they will not be fully reassured unless this is pursued consistently over a period of several years. The same is indicated by phone calls to federal and regional hotlines. The majority of these complaints, incidentally, came from the Oryol, Rostov, and Magadan regions. The situation is now back to normal. But the only way to guarantee that the problem will not recur lies in our consistently working with the teachers. Heads of regional and municipal education systems should contact teachers at schools, not address them from rostrums. It is only in this way that teachers will understand what it is all about and begin to get actively involved in the effort.
In 2011, federal subsidies alone were used to purchase new equipment for 7,000 schools (as described in the slide show). We purchased 2,000 buses, and about 15 million textbooks for 30,000 school libraries. In this connection, Mr Putin, I’d like to say that one of the ways to achieve the goal, which you set in your article and which was mentioned in reports earlier today by the school teachers is to introduce greater uniformity across textbooks. For example, we can hold an all-Russian competition of textbooks in each subject and recommend winners to schools. Not just one winner, but three or four in each category. This means that other textbooks can be included in the category of study aids. We will not discourage students from using them, but we should recommend several winning textbooks as basic ones. The competition commission should go beyond the ministerial level and include leading scientists, teachers and members of public organisations to be truly representative of all Russia. I think we can reduce the list significantly without causing any social tensions in connection with our choices of textbooks.
Next. Regions based their procurement procedures on our recommendations including mandatory training of teachers to operate new equipment, availability of service centres and technical support. However, there were problems associated with dishonest companies that won competitions by using improper competition papers which affected the disbursement of funds. Not all regions could spend these funds, and even court proceedings were opened in several regions where they looked into the cases at hand at the level of anti-monopoly authorities. For example, the supplier failed to meet the deadlines in the Kostroma Region, and the matter was taken to court. In the Smolensk Region, the Federal Antimonopoly Service received a complaint because the competition package had project requirements for mountainous areas. As a matter of fact, the Smolensk Region is flatland, so there was only one company which met the requirements. The terms and conditions were not honoured, the contest was cancelled, and the funds couldn't be properly used. We hope that no more such contests will be held.
Next. The project is designed to meet educational needs of students and their parents. Educational agencies and independent experts conduct surveys on an ongoing basis. For example, around 60% of Belgorod Region residents were satisfied with the general education level in 2008, whereas in late 2011 this figure was up at 80%. Figures are about the same in the Kemerovo Region. We believe that such surveys need to be conducted, and the results should be made available to the general public, because there are objective figures but they tend to be forgotten in the heat of political skirmishes.
Next. A project's effectiveness is characterised by an increase in the number of young teachers under 35. Their numbers grew by 10%, or over 25,000, from January 1, 2011 to September 1, 2011, which, we believe, is primarily the result of this project.
Comprehensive regional measures for 2012 are being finalised now. Agreements with nine regions have been signed already, and funds have been transferred to three of them. Let me remind you that according to the schedule all funds must be transferred before March 1, but I believe that we will be ahead of schedule and transfer 30 billion roubles before March 1. The second tranche should be transferred before June 1.
This year regions can use up to 25% of the subsidies, or up to 15 billion roubles, to conduct major repairs and renovate general education institutions. To compare, we have been allocating 1 billion roubles annually for school repairs over the past few years, and this brought some results. It's 15 billion this year, and about 10 billion next year, if we don't make any changes to the procedures. We hope that this will produce a system-wide effect. A list of the schools scheduled for renovation and estimated spending will be posted on the project's website. That way, the public will be able to control renovation work at schools. We hope that we will be able to settle once and for all the issue of warm bathrooms as part of this project. Same as some time ago, we were addressing the issue about using fire-burning stoves at schools in the Caucasus. It has been settled once and for all.
Next. The second most important goal for 2012 is to ensure the project's transparency. The project has been monitored from its very beginning at the regional and school level. The information about the amounts of funds allocated to specific municipal entities was made publicly available in all regions. In accordance with your instruction, Mr Putin, this year the agreement includes provisions about making the information about funds effectively reaching schools publicly available. This means that the public can control the canals that are used to transfer funds used for teachers' salaries to schools.
We are also focusing on engaging school councils in implementing projects, making a list of substantiated needs of general education institutions for equipment. Today, you discussed with the school council what exactly needs to be bought for allocated funds. I know that they have discussed the same issues before.
The third main subject for 2012 is that we should increase the average salary. Salary increases should be tied in with performance evaluations and skill advancement programmes. In addition, we will require that heads of municipal administrations and school executives take professional development courses as well. Today, they spoke about raising economic or accounting awareness among principals so they can learn to manage their budgets effectively.
Vladimir Putin: The principal said so herself.
Andrei Fursenko: Yes. That means we don't make them do it; they are interested in it.
It's very important to have this requirement reach each and every school, so that it doesn't get redistributed inside municipal governments, because in this case schools are tempted to patch some holes and aren't interested in any savings or in becoming independent.
Compensation systems are being discussed at schools and on hot lines, which means that such discussions are not held at all schools or are held only formally. We have started a forum on our ministry's website to discuss various compensation models. In a matter of a few days, these discussions migrated from the ministerial website to public websites. One thousand teachers are participating in these discussions which means that this is not a farfetched subject.
Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen!
Most of the teachers complain about increased administrative workload. The amount of paperwork is increasing, and each new project involves a new set of papers. In addition to switching to electronic paperwork, we suggest running reports under the Education national project, Our New School national initiative and regional general education system modernisation programmes in a standard electronic form as well. They have about the same parameters, but current rules require that each area has its own reporting system. Mr Putin, we are ready to submit an appropriate proposal to the government and combine these reporting tools into one.
In closing, I'd like to say that the project is very complicated. If we started the national project with supporting the leaders, this project calls for more responsibility and greater organisational efforts. Not only teachers and principals, but all interested parents and everyone else should contribute to improving our education. Therefore, I fully support the idea of involving parents in education and carrying out innovations in the sphere of education. Thank you. That concludes my report.
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Vladimir Putin’s concluding remarks:
I would like to thank you for today’s meeting. I would also like to thank those teachers whom I have met today at your school. The meeting was quite detailed and useful. I would like to ask the ministry to once again sum all this up, everything what has been said during the first and the second part of the meeting. Regional leaders who were involved in our work today should also do this.
As for the request of Galina Merkulova (chairperson of the Public Education and Science Workers’ Trade Union) and other trade unions concerning the programme’s continuation, our programme was expected to accomplish the following objective ... This, of course, implies the modernisation of the school education system. But we have allocated this funding from the federal budget in order to allow regions to spend more on repairs and equipment and to raise the average teacher salary to match the average in the economy. We are to accomplish this objective in 2012. As for your statement regarding the programme’s continuation, this means that additional billions will have to be allocated – 100 billion, 50, as much as … But then this programme should become somewhat different. We must understand how to disburse these billions. Our objective was to raise salaries to the average in the economy. Obviously, we are to accomplish this task in 2012. This does not mean that we will stop here, and I agree with Galina Merkulova that we must think about our next steps. So, let’s think together. Thank you very much for this work.