Translated material
Chronicle of events
September 1, 2000. The president's visit to a school in the village of Kuzkino, Shigonsky district, Samara region. There, Vladimir Putin announced that the problems of rural education can be solved with the help of computerization, and therefore the government is allocating at least a billion rubles to purchase 40 thousand computers for Russian schools. Another equally important result of Mr. Putin’s stay in Kuzkino was the revision of the position of biological science in the school curriculum. Having opened a biology textbook for the 7th grade, the president found an assignment there: “Indicate ten differences between the nervous system of an earthworm and the nervous system of a lancelet.” Since none of the officials, including Education Minister Vladimir Filippov, was able to give any intelligible answer to this “childish question,” the president doubted the advisability of such a detailed study of the lancelet by already overloaded Russian schoolchildren.
February 16, 2001. The government adopts a resolution “On organizing an experiment to introduce a unified state exam.” A few months later, a trial Unified State Exam was held in five regions of the country, with about 30 thousand schoolchildren participating. Last summer, about 600 thousand graduates from 47 regions already joined the experiment; in 2004, the Unified State Exam will be held in 62 constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
August 29, 2001. At a meeting of the State Council dedicated to the modernization of the education system, Vladimir Putin said that in Russia the problem of establishing state educational standards must be urgently resolved. The President demanded that "a reasonable balance be found between the universality of knowledge, its fundamental nature and the pragmatic orientation of education towards the real needs of the state's economy."
August 30, 2001. The first attack on history books. On the eve of the new school year, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov criticized school textbooks on modern history at a government meeting. His reproaches concerned the presence in textbooks of the terms “criminal lawlessness”, “working class” and “labor intelligentsia” and the lack of references to the values of a democratic society, the need for reforms in the economy and social sphere, and the fact that the people themselves have chosen the path of market reforms.
December 29, 2001. The government approved the “Concept for the modernization of Russian education (for the period until 2010).”
Spring 2002. The Ministry of Education and the State University Higher School of Economics have launched a project on the use of State Registered Financial Obligations (GIFO). The point of the new system is that budget money follows the student to the university. Five universities took part in the local experiment: three from Chuvashia and two from the Mari El Republic. Universities in Moscow and large cities have so far remained on the sidelines.
July 7, 2003. The President signed a law on the division of powers between the federal center, constituent entities of the Russian Federation and local governments in the field of education financing. The center's responsibility began to include the foundations of the formation of basic educational programs, the system of remuneration for employees of educational institutions, the minimum wage and official salaries. Subjects of the Russian Federation approve expenditure standards for the implementation of basic general education programs and allocate subventions to local budgets for their financing (including expenses for salaries and the purchase of teaching aids). Local government finances the maintenance and development of the material and technical base of educational institutions and utility payments.
October 10, 2003. The Duma began to change the school curriculum. The most pressing problem turned out to be the lack of NVP: by 338 votes to 42, the lower house adopted in the first reading a bill on the return of Kalashnikov assault rifles and drill drill to schools. For now, however, military training in schools is regulated by old legislation, which allows military training to be introduced only as an elective.
November 27, 2003. Second attack on history books. Education Minister Vladimir Filippov criticized the textbook on modern Russian history by Igor Dolutsky at the ministry board. The minister's anger was aroused by the quotes from Igor Burtin and Grigory Yavlinsky in the manual, which schoolchildren were asked to speculate on. Burtin said that after the election of Putin, an authoritarian dictatorship was established in Russia. Yavlinsky argued that already in 2001 a police state took shape in Russia. It is noteworthy that at the same time the president stated that “modern textbooks for schools and universities should not become a platform for a new political and ideological struggle.”
January 16, 2004. Vladimir Filippov solemnly reported at an all-Russian meeting in Tyumen that for the first time in Russian history, spending on education exceeded spending on the defense industry.