This year Russia is celebrating not only Teachers' Day but also the Year of the Teacher. While extending our congratulations to all teachers on this occasion, we would also like to use this opportunity to remind our readers of some of the problems facing those who have dedicated their lives to the art of teaching in Russia.
Statistics tell us that Russia spends a miserly 3.5% of its GDP on education, while the average in European countries is around 7-8%, in the US – 11%, in Finland – 16%, and in South Korea an incredible 23% of that country’s GDP.
Minister of Education and Science Andrei Fursenko recently announced that in Russia the number of teachers could possibly be reduced. At the same time, the minister emphasized that the ministry can only recommend that schools do so but cannot say how many teachers should be laid off or when. “In determining the optimal number of teachers, we can look not only at Russian experience but also international practice,” he explained. “In Europe on average there is one teacher per 13-15 students. We were at about this level 10 years ago. Today there is one teacher per 9-10 pupils. Today in Russia there are approximately 13 million pupils, and unfortunately due to demographic problems this number will not increase significantly in the near future. Growth won’t be seen earlier than 2015-2016. In order to be at the level were at a decade ago, we need 1 million teachers. But right now we have 1.2 million, so there is potential for the reduction of 200,000 teachers.”
The academic year has just begun and parent-teacher meetings are in full swing. The traditional topic of such meetings has always been the collection of money to meet school needs. However, this year parents are worriedly discussing impending educational reforms, which none of them can seem to understand.
The fate of teachers slated to be laid off should not worry us, the minister says. “The most important thing is that these teachers have somewhere to go,” Fursenko asserted. “Today the number of children in preschools is growing: over the past five years it has increased by over a million. And the number of preschool facilities is also growing. They need teachers. In essence we are seeing the quick formation of a new labor market,” the minister said.
We asked Evgeny Bunimovich, a member of the Moscow Municipal Duma and Children’s Rights Ombudsman for Moscow, to clarify and comment on the minister’s remarks:
– In our country we really are seeing a decrease in the number of pupils. But this situation can be approached in two ways. The first if the shortsighted policy of cutting funds and reducing the number of teachers, which is what the Ministry of Education proposes. But there is also another approach: today our teachers traditionally work on 1.5-2 ‘workloads’. The term workload is not a arbitrary term - it is the number of hours that a teachers can provide good and conscientious instruction. If we make it possible for teachers to work on one workload and receive the same amount of compensation that they have for 1.5-2 workloads, then the teachers will work fewer hours but be able to teach better. In this case we wouldn’t need to reduce the number of professionals who truly know how to teach. This means that today we not only have the opportunity to increase salaries but also to increase the quality of teaching. Of course, if reductions are made, this will primarily affect teachers in rural areas. And after they start shutting down small schools, I don’t think that we can ever expect village life to be reborn. The state must decide whether it wants to preserve towns and villages or not. If a village school is closed and the pupils begin to travel to the district center to study, there is practically no chance that they will return. This isn’t an educational issue, it concerns the policy of the state: does it want to abandon villages and leave them to die off? With regard to suggestion that laid-off teachers can be hired on at the increasing number of preschool facilities, I don’t think this is a very sensible alternative. After all, it’s quite clear that within several years all of these children coming into preschool will be moving on to regular schools. And they will need teachers…
