Republican education

Principals shared power with parents

Public self-government is gaining increasing popularity in Russian schools. Anatoly Pinsky, director of the Center for Socio-Economic Development of the State University School of Economics, spoke about this last Saturday at a press conference. According to him, today several hundred educational institutions resolve issues of organizing school life with the help of so-called governing councils, while according to the plan of the Ministry of Education and Science for 2005, only 24 such experimental sites were envisaged.

Unlike parent committees and boards of trustees, which play only an advisory role under the director, the governing board is a full participant in the educational process and has the right to sign documents. The governing council can decide whether a school will have a five- or six-day training schedule, open specialized classes, and approve budget estimates. The competence of the council includes issues of school uniforms, nutrition and medical care for children. The director is on the board ex officio, but he does not have the right to be the chairman of the board.

“There is no single standard for the powers of the governing council,” Anatoly Pinsky told Vremya Novostei. -- Each school decides for itself what the public decides and what the director decides. The division of powers between the director and the governing council is fixed in the school’s charter, which in turn must be certified by the founder of the educational institution.”

According to the authors of the project, the organization of governing councils will not only return parents to school as active participants in the educational and educational process, but will also make the economy of the educational institution transparent, that is, it will put all the money of sponsors and parents under control, which is what education reformers and the president have repeatedly called for.

Six regions are participating in the pilot project of the Ministry of Education, including the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Republic of Karelia, the Tambov Region, the Moscow Region, the Southern Administrative District of Moscow and the Yaroslavl Region. Today, about 80 schools are participating in the ministerial program, and another 70 are asking to be included in the experiment. Several hundred schools switched to the new management system on their own initiative.

In the distant future, it is planned that governing councils will be mandatory for all schools, with the exception of small rural ones. The previous composition of State Duma deputies even managed to vote for a bill according to which by 2007 all secondary education institutions will have to switch to the new scheme. However, the team of Education Minister Andrei Fursenko suggested finishing the experiment first, and then talking about the timing. According to Anatoly Pinsky, no final dates have been set now. However, all branches of government are gradually pushing school directors to create governing councils.

“The national educational project put forward by Vladimir Putin is currently being discussed,” said Anatoly Pinsky. — In particular, it plans to allocate grants from the federal budget to three thousand schools. And among the mandatory criteria for grant applicants is the presence of a public administration body at the school. And these are precisely the governing councils.”

Kirill VASILENKO