15 august 2012

A meeting on developing preschool education and making it accessible

Transcript:

Dmitry Medvedev: Good afternoon, good evening! I’m greeting Mr Dudov (Governor of the Magadan Region Nikolai Dudov). There is no one I can wish a good morning to, so let’s start working. Today, we’ve agreed to discuss preschool education on a broader plane. We’ll also talk about ways to provide more open access to children’s preschools or, in simpler terms, how to eliminate the queues for kindergartens. This issue is extremely urgent. I’ve been to almost every region of Russia, and I don’t remember a single case when I’d talk to people on the street and they wouldn’t ask me about kindergartens. This issue worries the absolute majority of people, at any rate those who have small children. This is why this issue will be on the government’s watch list, and I hope the regions will work hard to resolve it.

On September 1 of this year, 1.3 million children between the ages of three and seven will need places in kindergartens (smaller children will need them too but now we are discussing this category). I understand that about a million will get in, is that right? But we must resolve this issue throughout the country. It has not been removed from the agenda. On the contrary, the 2012 federal budget allocates eight billion roubles for loans to the regions. On July 20, the government made the decision to earmark another eight billion roubles for this purpose in 2013. These funds will be used for a comprehensive programme of support and development of children’s preschools and the construction of kindergartens.

Of course, the manner in which this is done is very important, according to what prices and standards. There is a serious discussion within society and even in government agencies on this score. And really, what is a modern kindergarten? This is a subject for separate discussion, probably not at our meetings. What should it be like, especially considering the emergence of alternative, private kindergartens, and different models of child care? The private sector is growing, and alternative forms of education and upbringing are being developed. I think that this is not a bad thing, all the more so since it allows a number of regions to resolve this issue quickly. There is also another problem that we’ve discussed and on which regional governors have worked, in some cases on my instructions. This is the return of the kindergartens that were either illegally divested or, in some cases, legally sold but improperly used. In any event, there are opportunities to bring them back into the educational system on the basis of some agreement, which is very important.

And, finally, the last point I'd like to make, but not the least important. I’d simply like to tell you that there is a departmental network of kindergartens. Some of them are on the balance of the Defence Ministry. People ask me about them constantly when I visit military townships. We must preserve these kindergartens by all means. I’ve just signed a directive on a number of kindergartens that are within the jurisdiction of the Defence Ministry. All of them should be kept to perform their main function.

We have regions on the line. I suggest that we first listen to what Ms Golodets has to say. Ms Golodets (addressing Olga Golodets, Deputy Prime Minister), go ahead. Please, be succinct, so as not to stray from the topic at hand. 

Olga Golodets: Thank you, Mr Medvedev. I’d like to report on how work is going on the task that has been set for our entire society – to make preschool education accessible to all children between the ages of three and seven by 2016. I’d like to emphasise that this task is not simply… This is not a formal task, but a common global trend in the development of education. These are modern approaches to education at an early age. If we don’t drastically improve preschools for children starting at the age of three, we won’t be able to hope for success when they reach seven, 10 or 17 years. This is why today we are paying so much attention to ensuring there is an adequate number of preschools and to the programmes of preschool education about which I’ll speak a bit later.

This year 5.9 million children went to preschools.

Dmitry Medvedev: How old are they?

Olga Golodets: This is the total for all children.

Dmitry Medvedev: All children? That is, starting from an early age?

Olga Golodets: Yes, from a very early age. The regions differ widely from each other, and some regions have enough preschools for children of any age. Our problem is of a geographical nature.

Dmitry Medvedev: In general, our country is very diverse.

Olga Golodets: Yes, very diverse indeed. We understand that very well.

Dmitry Medvedev: Surprisingly, this is not even a matter of densely or scarcely populated territories. Sometimes there is a densely populated area, but there is no problem with kindergartens there, and vice versa, a territory with a low population density is very short on them.

Olga Golodets: Yes, this is a geographical problem. Importantly, this year the generation that enters school is over one million.

Dmitry Medvedev: You say this sadly. This is a natural process.

Olga Golodets: This is a natural process but the next generation will be much larger. I’m referring only to those whose names are registered on the applications for kindergartens. Their number is 1.3 million. But not all parents want their children to attend kindergartens, so this figure may be growing. Now there are applications for 1.3 million and the availability of places is one million. The difference of almost 300,000 is a big one. Plus, there are waiting lists in different regions that also vary.

Dmitry Medvedev: What is the total waiting list for all ages?

Olga Golodets: 1.2 million are on the waiting list to get in on September 1, 2012. I’ve counted only those for whom there are no places.

Dmitry Medvedev: Yes, of course.

Olga Golodets: I haven’t counted those for whom seats are reserved because of…

Dmitry Medvedev: Certainly not – we must count only those who are on the waiting list and who are stuck.

Olga Golodets: Of these children 315,000 are between the ages of three and seven, the rest are kids of younger age, who are on the waiting list because today their mothers have a busy life. They want to work and take part in the economic life of the country. Preschools are very important and many mothers want to accommodate their children starting even from a year and a half to two years, and we aren't forgetting about this, either.

So, what is being done to reduce the waiting list? The construction of preschools is the most important thing in this respect.

An additional 281,000 places will be made available between September 1, 2012 and January 1, 2013. This is not the absolute limit. It will resolve the situation in many regions. I would like to tell you what the situation will be like in various regions in a moment, but this is a genuine breakthrough in terms of eliminating waiting lists. We have a number of regions that are absolute leaders in introducing new places. These are above all the Moscow Region, which will make available 25,800 new places this year, the Republic of Bashkortostan, St Petersburg, the Novosibirsk Region, the Leningrad and Irkutsk regions, and Moscow. Of the 83 regions, there are 11 absolute leaders that will meet all of their needs by September 1. There will not be any waiting lists for children aged 3-7 there.

Dmitry Medvedev: Could you name these regions?

Olga Golodets: I’ll read out the names of the most important regions in this regard: Moscow, St Petersburg, Tatarstan, Khakassia, the Altai Territory, the Vologda, Magadan, Novgorod, Pskov and Tambov regions and the Chukotka Autonomous Area.

Dmitry Medvedev: So, these are the most advanced regions.

Olga Golodets: They are at top of the league tables. They have put in enormous effort…

Dmitry Medvedev: It is especially surprising in the case of Moscow and St Petersburg because they are such colossal megalopolises.

Olga Golodets: The experts who are working on the problems are applying all of the resources possible, i.e. using alternative forms of development and all of the usable premises... Talks are under way on kindergartens that have been out of use. So, we are seeing signs of progress. We are working intensively with the regions. We have already held several conference call meetings on this topic with all of the Russian regions. And we hope that by January 1, 2013 more regions will be added to these 11 regions… I just don’t want to cite these figures now…

Dmitry Medvedev: Let them do it first.

Olga Golodets: Yes, let them achieve the results… But it would be a significant number of Russian regions. So much for the waiting list. We hope to be able to fulfil this programme and solve this problem by 2016, although the figure varies from year to year. Today, we are seeing the next generation, and we see that every generation differs from the previous generation by about 150,000, which is a substantial figure. Furthermore, more parents understand the need for preschool education and seek places for their children in kindergartens, so preschool education coverage is growing. We are mindful of this fact. So, we should work at an accelerated pace to stay ahead of the birth rate and the population growth.

Some other important points... I will speak for a couple of minutes about the content of early education because our task is not simply to provide access to preschool education, but to develop new approaches. Preschool education is one of the most difficult types of education because it calls for a special approach to small children and their development. Today, we have managed to put together, I think, an outstanding team of specialists – people who are engaged in educating children on a day-to-day basis, methodological specialists and international experts. These people are designing new approaches towards preschool education programmes. Importantly, these approaches are divided into blocks. They include strategies on physical training, artistic and aesthetic education, speech development, and so on and so forth. Today, for example, if you take the physical training programme, we gear our work to programmes prepared by top specialists in the Russian Federation, who are in my opinion the best in the world today. For example, Irina Viner (Chief Coach of the Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Team, Merited Coach of Russia) has developed a programme for kindergarten children from the age of three. Tests have shown outstanding results in terms of physical development. The group that is developing the musical education programme has recently been joined by Denis Matsuyev (Russian pianist and public figure) whose out-of-the-box approach to solving problems shows how to instil an interest in and a love for music at an early age and how to teach children to listen to music, to understand music and to add this important dimension to personal development. We expect that the new approaches for preschool education will be ready by 2013.

Dmitry Medvedev: You mean standards?

Olga Golodets: Education standards. We will begin testing these programmes in 2013. I think that we will be able to adopt the new standards of preschool education throughout the country by 2015.

Dmitry Medvedev: Thank you. On the whole, the information is positive because we are seeing progress. I remember that the waiting list was larger when we addressed this issue in 2006-2007, although the population was growing more slowly and the birth rate was lower. The situation was much more difficult. It is good that we have this trend, but a great deal remains to be done. There are many problems in some regions and we should use various mechanisms to deal with them. Let us discuss them. Let us proceed in this way. We will switch to the regions first and then we will have a discussion with the experts that are present in this room. I would simply like you, Andrei Turchak (Pskov Region Governor) and Nikolai Dudov (Magadan Region Governor), to tell us how you managed to solve this difficult problem and what mechanisms you used. So, without long reports, be brief and concise. Let us start with you, Mr Dudov, it is pretty late in your time zone. Then, we can let you go home.

Nikolai Dudov: Good afternoon, Mr Medvedev, esteemed colleagues. It is true that there was a time when the problem of providing preschool care for children was much more acute in the Magadan Region than it is today. Today's situation shows that the executive bodies – both on the municipal and regional levels – have worked hard to improve the situation. Of course, the problem has not been resolved completely because we believe that children under the age of three are also entitled to preschool care. In the Magadan Region, for example, 1,145 children of that age need preschools. That is about 9.4% of the total number of children aged from zero to seven. However, 91% of this figure are children aged from zero to three, of course. We have done a lot to help solve this problem for older kids. However, we are continuing to work to sustain the positive trend that started in a related programme. The programme was introduced as of this year, although previously it was on the municipal level. Of course, financing comes from the consolidated budget, although from the regional budget to a larger extent... We have a multi-pronged approach towards this problem. We use the capacity of existing educational institutions by creating preschool places in them. We work on the basis of your recommendations to return earlier divested preschools and use them for their designated purpose. This year, we are putting into operation two such facilities. Of course, we are also initiating the construction of new modern kindergartens. For example, construction started in the Yagodninsky District this year and we will open a kindergarten for 175 children in the Yagodnoye village next year.

We are confident that we will solve the problem of providing children aged three to seven with preschool institutions by 2016. There is no doubt about this question at all. We will probably be able to accomplish this much earlier. The important thing is that the mechanism is in place. Regrettably perhaps, we are not using all of the new approaches taking root in the country, but we are following them. However, our territory's features prevent us, for example, from having private preschool childcare institutions, although one community is experimenting with this concept. If it succeeds, we are ready to use this experience. We keep track of everything that is happening in the country and we would be interested in borrowing this experience. Most importantly, though, we will do out utmost to reach the desired results and resolve all of our remaining problems. Thank you.

Dmitry Medvedev: Thank you. I still do not quite understand. Will you have a waiting list this year or not? Because you said some very fine words about solving the problem by 2016: “The party is giving the solemn promise that the present generation will see kindergartens.” What is the current situation?

Nikolai Dudov: As of June 1, we had 122 children in the 3-7 age group on the waiting list. This year – by the year's end – we will create 259 places in preschools and practically resolve this age group's problem.

Dmitry Medvedev: Yes. Let us say then that we are speaking about children in the 3-7 age group now, although the problem applies to all children. So, you are going to solve the problem for all children aged 3-7 this year by opening new places. Fine. Thank you. As for private kindergartens, we will talk about this as well. Now, Andrei Turchak (Governor of the Pskov Region), Pskov Region.

Andrei Turchak: Good afternoon, Mr Medvedev. I would like to thank Olga Golodets for her positive assessment. However, I think that we still have to do a great deal to live up to that assessment. We do pay special attention to this problem. A regional programme until 2015 has been adopted. There are several elements in the programme. The first task is to provide places for the age group that we are discussing – from 3 to 7. The task will be fulfilled this year. As of today, we have to introduce 256 places for this age group and we will eliminate the waiting list by the end of 2012 as part of our regional programme.

What have we been doing? Naturally, we reopened the kindergartens that had been handed over in the past. Three buildings were given back over the past 1.5 years, including one by the Ministry of Defence. We have been opening preschool groups at existing schools. We opened over 20 such groups, thus providing more than 400 places. In addition, we took advantage of some unused floor space inside the existing kindergartens and created more than 40 additional groups for 400 places. In Pskov and Velikiye Luki, we opened four kindergartens in the past 1.5 years and one more kindergarten for 120 places will open in Pskov by the new school year. Thus, we have made 1,700 places available within 1.5 years. Under the federal programme, all of these places have been outfitted with modern equipment and soft toys, for which special thanks are due to the Ministry of Education. Our task is to start reducing the waiting list this year for children from 18 months old. There are several outstanding issues with the Ministry of Defence. I have to say that the minister has signed an order concerning some facilities, but the Department of Property is still passing the buck and is slow in signing acceptance statements with municipalities.

We are in constant correspondence over this issue with the Ministry of Defence. And we hope that three ministry facilities in 2012-2013…

Dmitry Medvedev: What Ministry of Defence facilities? Could you name them, Mr Turchak?

Andrei Turchak: It is a kindergarten at Kresty. A decision was made over 18 months ago, but the acceptance statement has not yet been signed. There are also two kindergartens in Vladimirsky Lager in the Strugokrasnensky District... These kindergartens worked for Vladimirsky Lager, but the minister has decided to redeploy the forces. And we are ready to take over these kindergartens and continue using them.

Dmitry Medvedev: I have made a note for myself because I will meet with the Defence Minister shortly and I will tell him to address this problem. There are three kindergartens?

Andrei Turchak: Yes, three kindergartens. He is aware of this issue because we have told the minister… I have been raising this issue every month, but unfortunately it gets bogged down at the DIO level.

Dmitry Medvedev: At what level? What is the DIO? Where does the issue get bogged down?

Andrei Turchak: DIO is the Department of Defence Ministry Property.

Dmitry Medvedev: I see, it is their property management department.

Andrei Turchak: Yes, it is their department.

Dmitry Medvedev: Are they telling you anything? Or are they just pushing paper?

Andrei Turchak: Well, they are doing something…

Dmitry Medvedev: Fine, we will look into it. Go on and finish your report.

Andrei Turchak: Another major part of our regional programme has to do with remuneration, with raising teachers’ salaries. I would like to say that beginning in 2011, we introduced a new system of remuneration which increased the salaries of kindergarten teachers by 32%. We are planning to raise it to the average salary level in the education system in the Pskov Region by January 1, 2013, that is, to 14,000 roubles plus, while the average wage in the region’s economy is 16,200 roubles. This is our target for 2013.

Dmitry Medvedev: All right, thank you for the information. Let us now come back here and discuss the system of preschool education in general. Alexander Asmolov (Director of the Federal Education Development Institute, Member of the Russian Education Academy), let's start with you. I have looked at the materials and they are full of high-brow words. For example, I have no idea what the “Montessori system” is, nor what the Sodruzhestvo (Commonwealth) programme is, and what the elements of Waldorf pedagogics are. You must know all this.

Andrei Asmolov: Mr Medvedev, there are some unique innovative school education systems. But if I start telling you about these systems it would take too much time, so I…

Dmitry Medvedev: But anyway these are good systems?

Andrei Asmolov: There must be a clear-cut system for every child. The system is tailored to every individual child, whereas in reality what is happening today… Not very long ago the Our New School programme was launched. Today we are witnessing the launch of the Our New Kindergarten and Our New Preschool Education programmes. As we are launching these programmes I would like to draw your attention to several matters. First. Our children are the children of the networking information century. They are different and their means and modes of communication are different. Let me cite just one example. I recently gave a child a book, “The Fisherman and the Fish” with some fantastic illustrations (I have cited this example before). The child was three years old. He took the book, looked at the pictures and then made this gesture (gestures), and when he saw that the picture did not expand…

Dmitry Medvedev: He lost interest?

Andrei Asmolov: Yes. He threw it away thinking it was some kind of broken iPad, and the kid was just three years old. So, the first thing we have to understand is that these are different children, the children of the networking age, of the information age, and their reactions are different. When we think about new programmes we have one tricky problem to solve: if children live and breathe in this information world, if they are born into it, if they are adept at solving non-standard tasks already, the biggest drama is really the drama of teachers and educators being behind our preschoolers in some ways. I want to make my point clear because when a child has these skills… When you ask a five-year-old kid how he managed to fix the mobile phone so quickly, which his grandfather or father could not fix, how he did it… He simply did it. He does not have to explain how he did it. In other words…

Dmitry Medvedev: He simply knows.

Andrei Asmolov: Absolutely right. He simply knows. And that gives rise to certain risks: the risk of not understanding that we are dealing with children of information socialisation and are devising the wrong kinds of programmes for the development of our educators. Creating the right programmes is the number one task.

The second risk is to forcibly graft school standards onto the unique world of a preschooler. And I say to myself, pardon me, I simply pray that we do not fall into the sin of introducing a Unified State Exam (EGE – Russian acronym) for preschoolers. You recently mentioned that you recently got a feel of what the EGE means for high-school students. But EGE for preschool kids, if we introduce it, would be dangerous. So, standards are needed, as you have just said, and I would like this to be taken note of. We need standards of diversified education for preschool children that take into account unique paths of children’s development. This is the key: not just knowledge, not just skills and habits, the key is that these programmes should instill in the child a confidence in himself and his or her potential. We have a unique opportunity. We have a number of brilliant people, classics of our psychology and pedagogy who have done this, and it is not by chance that our educational programmes are used, I don’t mind telling you, in Brazil and Argentina, and even in Finland, the number one in the world in the field of education – they are using our programmes. So today, creating these programmes is a unique task that is facing us. It involves certain details. We should try to introduce education through play. If we simply transfer the forms of education in grade schools to the child, we will be the losers, their potential will wilt. The second point: our children today are early developers in terms of information. But there is a serious risk of an imbalance between personal development and intellectual development. In terms of information and intellect the child may be far advanced, but his level of maturity as a person is very different. So one would like to see the educators, who often take the baton of communication from the mothers, become masters of communication. We should not be afraid to have them master the skill of play and perhaps take acting classes for working with and understanding preschoolers. Therefore the new array of alternative programmes of education for preschoolers is absolutely necessary today. What are the fears? The fear is that we will come to regard preschool childhood as preparation for school. It is the school that should be ready for the child, not the child for the school. The issue should be approached in a totally different way. As it is, we are in the thrall of a paradoxical logic: a child prepares for school, a schoolchild prepares for university, a university student prepares for work, a worker prepares for retirement, and a retiree prepares himself…

Dmitry Medvedev: We know for what.

Andrei Asmolov: Yes, and so it works out such that preschool education is preparation for death. I am very scared of this twisted kind of logic, because the whole point of childhood and these programmes is not to be dominated by school. On the contrary, when culture is passing through difficult times, one feels like saying: “Preschoolers, onward.” In this situation, what is happening today is a kind of… Our remarkable demographer, Vishnevsky, coined the word “child-centrism.” What we see in this conference call is a test of regional governors for “child centrism,” a test of their attitude to childhood. This test reflects the attitude to childhood and its values and it is very important to me. So, alternative standards of childhood, new programmes of childhood, avoiding introducing some banal things that stem from the failure to take into account information socialisation – these things are absolutely essential. And I think that in general we should take these steps (sometimes I don’t have the temerity to say that we are mature enough for this).

And the last point. Children today play a lot of computer games. These computer games are a wonderful thing, but computer games must be subjected to psychological tests. When a child is asked how he will solve a task, what does he answer? “It depends on what weapon I have and how many lives I have.” We see a novel phenomenon: the child feels that he can go forward and backward in time, that everything is reversible in the virtual world, and that in the virtual world responsibility is also virtual. These are very dangerous phenomena that I wanted to mention, Mr Medvedev, when we speak about our new kindergarten as a unique innovative space in this rich and diverse country.

Dmitry Medvedev: Thank you, Mr Asmolov. You began speaking about information socialisation and what has happened to children. I can tell you… And by the way, regarding your final words about games, I get the feeling that we talked with you before, though we didn’t – these words made me think that all this has happened even much earlier than we imagine. We are not talking about the generation of iPhones and iPads which, as you put it, are information early developers. That is a recent development. But I remember that perhaps in 1998 my own child made me aware of the topic that you just mentioned. We were in a swimming pool during a holiday and he says: “Let’s not swim there or else we’ll drown and we’ll have to reboot.” This highlights the gap between real and virtual life, or rather the disappearance of the boundary between online and offline, between real life and virtual life. When it is at such a level, it is not dangerous, it is amusing. But the older a person grows the more temptations he has, the more complicated the games and the more serious the tests of maturity. I do not know, frankly, if all these games can be tested for that, simply because packs of these games appear every day. But certainly, the parents and the school must pay attention to this. I mean, these gadgets set a stereotype of behaviour. It is something that is implanted.

This leads me to another point on which I agree with you, and that is the problem of how well prepared our teachers are for preschool education. When we launched the programmes concerning our schools, I mean the national project, I had strong fears as to whether the teachers would be well prepared for the new technologies. You go to a provincial town or a village and see children (maybe they are not as slick as city kids, but children are children everywhere) who are very much at home with computers, and I see teachers, especially provincial teachers, who are frightened to see what that thing (the computer) is doing. One feels that he or she does not understand what he/she is holding in his/her hands. And I became fearful at the time that we would be widening the generation gap. But you know, that gap never formed. One must give our teachers their due: they bridged that gap fairly easily.

Since the schools were computerized (and they get new computers regularly) the teachers have not been afraid of them. This is not to say that they all go to bed and wake up with a computer, but they are not scared of computers, they can press the right keys, they know what’s going on, everyone from young teachers up to teachers of pension age. In that sense everything is fine. As for kindergartens… They call for a different set of pedagogical skills and, let’s face it, there are less well-trained teachers there than in schools. We must address this problem.

With regard to variable education for preschool children, I need hardly comment on that, it goes without saying because this is the age at which education cannot be anything other than variable so while standards are needed, there is no need for a Unified State Exam, that’s for sure.

Very well. Yelena Topolyova-Soldunova (member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, Director of the Social Information Agency), you have the floor.

Yelena Topolyova-Soldunova: Thank you. Olga Golodets said that she would be keeping a close eye on how well the regions are observing targets for creating places in kindergartens. But I would like to say that in addition to administrative monitoring we also have public monitoring which is no less important, and because our civil society is becoming ever more active we see increased activity in that sphere as well, especially among parents, of course. We have all read and heard about the march of mums with prams in St Petersburg and other cities as a form of protest over the shortage of kindergarten places, and we have heard about other protest actions. But in addition to protest actions there is also constructive civil activity, and one form of this activity is the creation of new forms of preschool education, for example, family preschool groups. We said that so far only a small percentage of preschool institutions are non-state, just 1.8%. But I think that the values of the models that have been created and are being successfully used in some regions can be neither ignored nor underestimated, because this is a very interesting experience. For example, family or preschool education groups are doing a very good job in the Rostov and Amur regions. We at the Public Chamber have studied that experience and found, firstly, that having children attend these groups is much cheaper than ordinary kindergartens, and secondly, there are greater opportunities for an individual approach to children, for the specialised programmes whose importance we keep emphasising. But all this, of course, is very complicated because the requirements that are set for a kindergarten have to be met and in such a group sometimes all they have is one room where children can sleep and rest in accordance with the existing standards, and all this can be quite problematical sometimes. And yet some regions have managed to introduce this scheme, sometimes by bringing in non-profit organisations. I think that experience is worth studying and replicating.

There is also some very useful experience of attracting private business. Having said that, from what we know (for example, some good experience has been gained in the Krasnoyarsk Territory) such businesses are hardly ever profitable, so in fact what we are talking about here is practically social entrepreneurship. But we know that the Ministry of Economic Development, for example, is currently working on programmes to support social entrepreneurship just like they support small and medium-sized businesses. And yet social entrepreneurship is a very special case. I think the emphasis should be on social entrepreneurship in this field, in the field of preschool education, that would also be very welcome. For example, the Our Future foundation is a very active supporter of social entrepreneurship. And I think we could talk to them to encourage them to develop this line, and this kind of experience could then be applied elsewhere.

I could also cite the experience of the Perm Territory, where parents were given allowances, and they could use these allowances to send their children wherever they liked: it could be an ordinary municipal kindergarten, or a private kindergarten or a family education group and so on. However, that scheme has come in for some criticism. Even so, the waiting list dropped from 30% to 4% in the Perm Territory when the system was introduced. So that system is worth studying. It can take the form of consumer subsidies or an allowance or some kind of vouchers issued to parents who can then choose the form of preschool education for their children. Naturally, it cannot be just any institution but one on the list of accredited institutions and so on. So there is room for variability. I think it is probably wrong to proceed on the basis that only the state should tackle this problem, I mean other sectors (the private sector, the non-profit sector and parents’ associations) should join in and they can make a big contribution.

I would also like to say a word about departmental kindergartens. Back in Soviet times, many enterprises had their own kindergartens. Later, companies began to get rid of these kindergartens as non-core assets. Of course, it would be wrong to force companies to have these types of kindergartens. But there are some good examples here, too. And I think this is an area where private-public partnerships can work very well. Because businesses – Russian Railways has its own kindergartens and so does Gazprom – would benefit if the children of their employees were kept in kindergartens with decent conditions, and better still, for the whole day.

Incidentally, another problem is that sometimes kindergartens, and they are often municipal kindergartens, are only open for a very short period during the day and afterwards parents are faced with the same problem… A mother, for example, cannot work because she has to collect her child at 4 or 5 p.m. which is in the middle of her workday. These kinds of full-day kindergartens can be and are being created by companies. It is important to give them support. There are also examples of private-public partnerships when, for instance, parents get a subsidy and spend it on a kindergarten or when the local authorities can help provide premises for such a kindergarten; in short, there are various options. I was once in Brazil and there a company (it was called Naturcosmetics, a perfume business) provided an example of such corporate social responsibility. In addition to being an ecologically clean and very well-run production facility, they showed me a kindergarten. Most of the staff there are women and the purpose of the kindergarten is to enable the women, after giving birth, to quickly get back to work. And their children are there with them (it is basically a crèche) and they have, for example, a chance to breastfeed their children in the crèche. They are secure, they see what is happening and how their children are taken care of. In short, it is a win-win situation: the company is happy that it is not losing valuable workers and the mothers are happy because they are working and their children are being taken good care of. Incidentally, France also has some good experience which is worth studying.

And my last point. Mr Turchak spoke about progress in accommodating children at kindergartens, but he forgot to mention one major achievement in the Pskov Region: the way the system of preschool, school and professional education for children with disabilities is arranged. We pay lip-service to inclusion, which is also very important, but unfortunately when children have disabilities they cannot be in an ordinary school or kindergarten. In the Pskov Region they have created a system of special institutions for these children beginning from a very early age, and the initiative came from non-profit organisations. This is a unique instance when the authorities became aware of the importance, usefulness and efficiency of such a model, gave it their full support, shared the responsibility with the non-profit organizations and together they created a model that can be applied in absolutely all the regions. These are special kindergartens where children with disabilities are not just taken care of and receive proper medical care, but can develop. Their potential – and they also have potential – can come out in such kindergartens. Later they move on to clinical pedagogic centres when they reach school age and so on. And they also have career guidance and special institutions for that: workshops for adults with disabilities. It is a fantastic system which I think should be replicated in other regions. Thank you.

Dmitry Medvedev: Thank you.

I would like to comment on what you have said. I think the future of preschool education consists in variety, which is not something to be afraid of. Why? Not because we are short of money for building large beautiful kindergartens with dozens of rooms, a huge capacity for cooking meals and so on, like it was done in Soviet times, but because there is often no need for this. You have cited the example of Brazil, and other exotic and not so exotic countries: indeed, very often mums and dads do not need to have their child in a kindergarten the whole day, they would be quite happy to have them there for just a few hours. On the other hand, company kindergartens is definitely a progressive initiative. If a company does it, if an enterprise does it, I think the heads of Russian regions and our colleagues in government should look into this and think about it and perhaps offer some advice to companies because this can be very helpful. And again, children do not necessarily have to be there the whole day, the duration can vary. In other words, we need a diversity of preschool institutions. This prompts the task of creating a proper regulatory framework because there have always been problems with that. When something new is created the prosecutor comes along and says: “No, this is a dodgy outfit, you are all crooks.” And naturally, they try to shut it down or at least throw a spanner in the works.

Alexander Asmolov: Typology.

Dmitry Medvedev: Yes, it should be fitted into a certain scheme because naturally the Prosecutor’s Office and other law enforcement bodies think along these lines. But in that case our lawmakers should make provision for a greater variety of forms so that any legally created preschool childcare institution can fit these standards. The institutions will vary: sometimes they will be like fully-fledged kindergartens, and sometimes groups that take in children not for a whole day but perhaps for part of the day and not only for education, but simply for keeping an eye on them because that is also important. They do not necessarily have to offer the full range of educational disciplines, this is not always what parents need.

As for private business, I agree that it would be good to make use of the existing opportunities. Obviously, these are non-profit activities or in any case activities that are not pursued for profit. We just need to think through further stimulus measures to attract private business into the system of preschool education. The forms can vary, but it has to be though about. So, thank you very much.

I hope that the regulations that Ms Golodets presented at the beginning of our brief conference will be put into practice. Our plans are ambitious. Those regions of the federation that came on line are generally in good shape: they are in the vanguard and they are doing well, because they are also addressing the problems of children with disabilities: this really is a very challenging issue. But I hope that our population will grow and you will have to tackle this task next year and the year after that. So there must be reserve places in preschool childcare institutions and kindergartens. Especially since the task of providing children’s places in the zero to three years of age bracket has not been solved, and this is a perceived need for our citizens. I will sign the instructions that will be required as a follow-up to the discussion today.

And the very final point. This is the middle of August and we are discussing kindergartens, but the school year is approaching, so, Ms Golodets, get ready, we will have activities to prepare for the school year, taking into account the results of the so-called August pedagogical meetings that are traditionally held in our country and in general considering that this is an important part of the social programme. Thank you all very much for taking part in this conference. Good-bye.

Olga Golodets: Thank you.