Translated material
Didn't pass the reform exam
Deputies criticized Andrei Fursenko's program
Education reform, carried out by the team of Minister Andrei Fursenko, became the subject of heated debate yesterday between the legislative and executive powers. The minister came to the deputies to tell them during government hour about planned innovations in secondary and higher schools. But before he could finish reading his report, he was accused of intending to destroy free higher education and trying to “plant a bomb under Russia.”Mr. Fursenko intended to tell parliamentarians about how his department intends to review education standards in secondary schools. “The loads that fall on Russian schoolchildren are too great and, in a number of indicators, exceed those of many foreign countries,” he explained. The Ministry of Education and Science proposes to reduce the number of compulsory lessons for all schoolchildren to four or five per day, making these classes as intense as possible and freeing up children’s time for rest and additional activities. Additionally, according to the minister, physical education lessons can be provided. “They should be organized according to a different principle than now, and should be perceived by schoolchildren not as a burden, but, on the contrary, as relaxation,” the minister believes.
Andrei Fursenko also presented to legislators his final vision of the prospects for the unified state exam. “The Unified State Exam should not become the only possible form of admission to higher education institutions. This is a fundamental question. There must be alternatives to the unified exam,” he emphasized, adding that he still considers it necessary to finance universities (per student) depending on the applicant’s success in passing the Unified State Exam. Thus, the minister actually abandoned the promise given to rectors a month ago to bury the idea of personalized financial certificates for school graduates.
The parliamentarians ignored the minister’s report and explained that they were more concerned not with specific, but with general and global issues of educational reform. In particular, a reduction in free places for students, low teaching salaries and the quality of educational literature. Andrei Kokoshin, a member of the general council of the United Russia party, chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs and Relations with Compatriots, said that his party recently created an expert council on education and science, which is already actually conducting an examination of bills prepared by the ministry. Of particular concern, according to Mr. Kokoshin, is the commercialization of the educational sector.
The minister fought back as best he could, convincing legislators that today there are more free students studying than in Soviet times. “On the contrary, we stand for maintaining the system of free general education in the country. If there is talk about introducing fees for additional services, then there is no need to say that the ministry as a whole supports the transition to a paid education system,” he emotionally explained. Andrei Fursenko talked about how high salaries school and university teachers would be in 2008, and recalled that in 2005 the scholarship fund increased by 50%.
However, the minister failed to destroy the negative attitude of deputies towards the reform. And Mr. Kokoshin told the head of the Ministry of Education and Science that his party comrades were “taking control of the reform of Russian education,” considering it “one of the most important factors of economic growth.”