Novosibirsk NovoCollege (its teachers oppose the war) ceases work

Novosibirsk City Open College (Novokolledzh), whose leadership openly takes an anti-war position and refuses to hold propaganda events within its walls, will cease its activities in July 2024. The founder of the educational institution, Sergei Chernyshov, said this in a video message. Also, at the end of the academic year, the New School and the Foreign Language School “Inotext” associated with the college will cease to operate.

According to Chernyshov, he sees only two options for NovoCollege - either turn it into “a typical Russian college with propaganda and fawning on officials,” or admit that “it is impossible to create a normal college in an abnormal country.”

In his address, Chernyshov noted that current teachers bear “a huge blame for the normalization of the war in our country: for “Talks about Important Things,” letters to the front, delivery of subpoenas, for propaganda and recognition of former murderers and rapists as heroes.”

“It is the duty of any person who considers himself an educator: to say that war is terrible, and the people who support it deserve exclusively our contempt. Because education is worthless if it doesn’t notice how people are being killed in the neighbor’s apartment while continuing to talk about some kind of innovative educational technologies. We, as teachers, had to show students how a person should act in conditions of moral choice,” concluded Chernyshov.

• In May 2023, the Russian Ministry of Justicedeclared the founder of NovoCollege, Sergei Chernyshov, a “foreign agent.” After this, he left administrative positions at the educational institution. Following this, Novokolledzh was fined 50 thousand rubles under the article on organizing the educational process without special permission (Part 1 of Article 19.20 of the Administrative Code), Mediazona wrote . Chernyshov called the real reason for the administrative prosecution the refusal to hold “Conversations about Important Things” at NovoCollege.