Duma deputy wants government-standardized textbooks for math, history, language, and literature

Duma deputy Irina Yarovaya has introduced legislation that would mandate standardized textbooks in four school subjects: math, Russian history, Russian language, and literature. The bill would reform existing laws regulating education and the procurement system used to obtain goods and services for state and municipal needs.

Yarovaya says basic textbooks provide “all children across Russia, regardless of their family’s social status or place of residence, with a common, government-guaranteed gold standard of education.” She says Russian students should study according to an identical lesson plan and receive the same knowledge. Introducing standardized textbooks, Yarovaya argues, will help avoid discrimination.

In Yarovaya’s opinion, teaching students using standardized textbooks will eliminate “existing discrimination against children,” inequality in preparation for the Uniform State Exam [EGE], and problems arising when students transfer to new schools, where teachers use different textbooks.

TASS

• Irina Yarovaya is the author and co-sponsor of several controversial bills in recent years. She drafted laws to criminalize the so-called “rehabilitation of Nazism,” to raise penalties on organizers of public rallies that violate local ordinances, to label foreign-funded, socially active NGOs “foreign agents,” and also to increase the punishment for offending the sensibilities of religious people.
• In 2013, Yarovaya suggested standardizing textbooks not just in Russian history but also in Russian language and literature.
• In February 2015, it was reported that the Russian Academy of Education is working on a standardized approach to liberal arts education.
• In January 2015, Yarovaya said the Russian education system is too “tailored to the study of foreign languages.” She criticized the Education Ministry’s plan to make a second foreign language compulsory in schools’ curriculum and require students to pass a standardized exam in at least one foreign language, asking worriedly, “How can we expect to preserve our traditions under these circumstances?”