Transcript:

Dmitry Medvedev: We didn’t meet for some time because of summer vacations. To begin with, I’d like to tell you that I have signed a special resolution on the formation of a national coordinating council to support talented young people as a way to identify and develop their talents further, which was endorsed on April 3 of this year. It is clear that we need to do this to continuously upgrade the system of identifying young talents and working with them. At the same time it is important to make sure that teachers pay attention to each and every child without neglecting a single one of their talented pupils. We must get this council working. This is what Ms Golodets is going to do. Could you please tell us about the current plans

Olga Golodets: We have elaborated a programme to carry out all instructions related to working with talented children, giving priority to supplementary education. The concept is based on the premise that  all children possess some talent and that we must help each and every child to reveal their strengths. In the next three years, we plan to extend supplementary education to 75% of all children as compared to 50% now. This is a very serious task and today all regions are getting ready to implement it.

The second topic that we are closely studying today and on which we have started working is the creation of new supplementary education programmes. These programmes should be modern, interesting and effective. They should spark children’s interest, motivate them to study and help them reveal their talents and become professionals.

The third topic is selecting children with extraordinary abilities. According to expert estimates, about 10% of children are extremely capable in a given field and it is very important for us not to miss them. We must create a system of social lifts that will give every child with outstanding talent the opportunity of professional training.

Our programme provides for the development of a system of special institutions that are aimed squarely at training talented children. Some of them exist under the auspices of our leading universities like the academic and research centre at Lomonosov Moscow State University and a number of cultural institutions like the Moscow Academy of Choreography and many others that will be upgraded under the new programme.

Dmitry Medvedev: This is a good programme. I hope you will do a good job because, indeed, all children have talents. The main thing is to help them reveal their talents. There are also extremely gifted people who must be approached as a separate group.

There is a more mundane, but no less important issue about secondary school teachers’ salaries. According to existing decisions, teachers' salaries should be in line with the average in respective regions by the end of 2012. They may be higher, but they cannot be lower. I know that this is not the case in all regions, even though regional authorities are trying to do their best. There are regions where teachers' salaries are below 80% of the average. The school year has just begun, so I would like to know what is being done to remedy this situation?

Olga Golodets: Mr Medvedev, we have conducted an audit related to the start of the new school year and held a nationwide teleconference on September 6 where we drew up intermediate results regarding the implementation of this executive order. We have ten regions that perform well in this respect and have met the target figures set forth in the order, meaning that teachers’ salaries in these regions are above the average salary in the region. These regions include Moscow and the Moscow Region, the Sverdlovsk, Belgorod and Kaluga regions, the Krasnodar Territory, the Kaliningrad, Vladimir and Novgorod regions and the Republic of Tyva. These regions have met the requirements. However, there are regions where the situation, as you said, is different, and there are objective and subjective reasons for this. In a number of regions, teachers’ skills and qualifications are not the same as in the regions that I just mentioned and where, for objective reasons, it is difficult to achieve the level of salaries set forth in the order. Primarily, I’m referring to the Tyumen Region and the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District. We are now working online to address these issues with them: they offer their solutions and experts from the Ministry of Labour help them find the right ones. I believe that we will be able to find a common approach to resolving these problems.

However, there are regions where teachers’ skills and qualifications are in line with the national average, but they still haven’t achieved the salary levels set forth in the executive order. These regions include the Vologda Region, the Chelyabinsk Region, the Smolensk Region, the Chechen Republic, Karachayevo-Circassia, Dagestan and Ingushetia. We will keep working on it and I hope that all regions will meet this goal by January 1, 2013.

Dmitry Medvedev: I'm sure they will, they have no choice. They just need to show diligence and set priorities, because we all know that the distribution of funds is all about setting priorities. There is no need to get nervous or become overly concerned. All you need to do is just do your work methodically. I realise that some regions may have problems with this because they have very high average wages, but things are as they are, so we should raise teachers’ salaries to these levels, the other way round. They will need to seek answers to these questions as well.

Mr Dvorkovich, I know that you attended the Hydro Air Show in Gelendzhik. Did you like it? Did our manufacturers have anything exciting to show us? Was there anything that stood out?

Arkady Dvorkovich: First, it was an interesting event. Second, we discussed issues that were raised at the meeting in Novosibirsk in August regarding the development of regional aviation. The point is to start manufacturing 15- to 50-seater jets in Russia to promote labour mobility in Russia. We do not have such aircraft manufacturers now.

We looked into several projects in Gelendzhik. There are projects to upgrade the old fleet or replace engines of the renowned An-2 plane...

Dmitry Medvedev: What will An-2…

Arkady Dvorkovich: …which is still miraculously fit to fly.

Dmitry Medvedev: …become? A supersonic jet? How?

Arkady Dvorkovich: No, we are talking about equipping them with new foreign-made engines which will extend their service life by another seven to ten years…

Dmitry Medvedev: Seven to ten or seventy?

Arkady Dvorkovich: Seven to ten.

Dmitry Medvedev: Just reminding you that we have had An-2 aircraft in service for 70 years now.

Arkady Dvorkovich: No, 70 years is an unlikely number, because the An-2 are fairly old already, but we could extend their life by another ten years and use this time to design new aircraft.

Alternatively, we could use foreign-made aircraft assembled in Russia, such as Dornier, Pilatus or some other models. They have all proposed assembling them in Russia with varying degrees of localisation. We are trying to see which ones are best suited for domestic flights. In accordance with your directive, we will submit our proposals in October based on current negotiations. In Gelendzhik, we thoroughly analysed the strengths and weaknesses of each aircraft. We are now discussing prices and the amount of investments needed to produce a particular aircraft.

I have also held a meeting on subsidising domestic flights before going to Gelendzhik. The Volga Federal District has finalised its proposal regarding regional routes, and we will be able to begin subsidising these services as early as January.

Other regions are also getting their proposals ready. I believe that we can begin subsidising passenger flights in other federal districts beginning the second quarter of 2013. This will increase the number of domestic flights by several hundred thousand per year. At the same time, we need to upgrade regional airports and train pilots. The draft budget has 5 billion roubles reserved for these purposes, and we will decide on proper allocation of these funds during this week preceding the Government meeting on the budget.

Dmitry Medvedev: All right then, good. In order to finish the open part of our meeting on a positive note (always a nice thing to do), I would like to congratulate all Russian athletes who took part in the Paralympic Games. Our team performed brilliantly and substantially improved on the results achieved during the previous Games. These Games showed that our Paralympic athletes have a very strong backbone and character. They are brave and strong people who, in an uncompromising competition, came out unmatched in the great majority of sports. They did a great job, so let’s congratulate them on their performance.

Thank you.

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