Throwing away grants

Yuri Luzhkov suggested that schools refuse money from the national project

Moscow officials, it seems, were themselves able to fully appreciate the subtleties of the bureaucratic “art” that nullifies even the most correct initiatives. An attempt by the Ministry of Education and Science to support the best schools within the framework of the national project “Education” by allocating them grants of 1 million rubles is turning into a major scandal in the capital. It turned out that the amount of the grant is not comparable with the efforts that teachers must make to use these funds and report on their expenditure . In any case, this is exactly what the mayor of the capital, Yuri Luzhkov, said yesterday at a meeting at the Moscow City Hall, where the city's target program "Capital Education" for 2005-2007 was discussed. “Let's refuse to receive grants,” suggested Mr. Luzhkov, “until measures are taken to organize a normal system of work.”

According to the chairman of the Moscow City Duma Commission on Science and Education, Evgeniy Bunimovich, difficulties in absorbing federal subsidies arose in all 118 Moscow schools that won the competition. Instead of new equipment, the leading teachers of the capital’s pedagogy received another headache, since not only can they not afford to re-equip the base, but they “have already received a notice from the prosecutor’s office about upcoming inspections of the intended use of funds.” “This was a competition for innovative schools, but schools cannot afford innovative equipment for classes, for example, biology, chemistry, because this equipment comes under a different budget item,” the deputy complained.

Yuri Luzhkov, in turn, was outraged by the scheme for disbursing the grant proposed by federal officials. Money from the budget arrived only at the end of November, and until mid-December was given to spend it. After which the unused money must be returned to the budget, and for every ruble spent, schools have to submit about 90 types of reports. According to the capital's mayor, a million rubles, on which, according to him, a modern Moscow school would not survive even a week, is not worth such efforts. “Well, what is a million? This is not the basis that ensures the economic activity of the school, but an addition that can be spent on strengthening and polishing the main work,” Mr. Luzhkov reasoned. He said that educational institutions in Russia's wealthiest region will only use grants when they are given the opportunity to use the money at the discretion of teachers, and the funds promised by the state will come from the budget at the beginning of the financial year. “Otherwise, hello to money and efforts, which are also limited,” the mayor complained.

Winning teachers over to his side in the fight against the feds, the mayor immediately promised to make a decision by the end of the year on a “significant” increase in the salaries of the capital’s teachers, veiling this with concern for rejuvenating the staff at the school. However, such material incentives can also have the opposite effect. According to the head of the capital’s Department of Education, Lyubov Kezina, up to 30% of teachers, due to the specifics of their profession (only 11% of the teaching staff are men), remain lonely and, without the support of other family members, continue to work even after retirement age. According to Mr. Bunimovich, the situation could be changed by equating teachers with civil servants, but the deputy still considers a speedy transition of the education system to sectoral wages to be a more effective method.

Yulia KHOMCHENKO