Russian education ought to retain its traditional solid basis and to contact closely with innovative economics, said the minister. Commenting on the media-vaunted idea about the decadence of the Russian educational level, Andrey Fursenko said that the situation of the 1990s when interest in education notably diminished is changing, with the provinces showing even greater eagerness for knowledge than the capital.
Federal allocations for education have grown four-fold over the past four years and the Russian educational sphere is open today for reasonable novelties. Computer classes are available at all the schools (there are 63,400 undergraduate schools in Russia with an enrolment of 17.1 million students). That training has become more pragmatic and closer-to-life is exemplified by the course "My Choice", a strategy of success in life and career-building, taught today to 14-15-year-olds in 60 regions of the country. Role games help schoolchildren determine their priorities in life, enhance the art of decision-making and carry out dialogue. Secondary schools can and should introduce the history of religions treated by secular books, said Andrey Fursenko.
Ten Russian jurisdictions are practicing education in senior classes with a deeper insight into the sciences or the arts. This kind of training is expected to be introduced in the next two-to-three years everywhere (it was once the prerogative of high-brow schools only). As to the boundless sea of schools, this phenomenon has caused even certain popular discontent because pluralism in the teaching of history and literature is not habitual in this country.
The number of schools opened this year is double that of 2003; half of the teachers have been qualified for higher posts; the library stock has increased by 43 million copies. Though all this is evidence of indisputable success, even Moscow schools are lacking teachers.
The shortage is estimated at 21,000 people, chiefly those training in foreign languages, information science, physics, music, physical culture and manual skills. Many tutors work with overstrain, to say nothing of the aging tendency, comments the education ministry. Graduates of teachers' college do not seek to continue teaching career.
The past year has revealed 15,660 children without any elementary and basic general education. Part of rural schools are to close down because there is no enrolment at all. The once wide-spread slogan "from dream to reality" in relation to accessibility of education has made a partial transformation vice versa.
Mistakes are being corrected, otherwise the objective of continuous education cannot be realised. "It is obvious that success can be achieved only by the constant build-up of knowledge," said Andrei Fursenko.
