Because elections are coming soon
Today is a holiday for the guys, the pioneer rejoices - and no, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria did not come to visit us, as they say later in this nursery rhyme of the Stalin era. For us - for students, their parents and their teachers - something much more joyful happened: Putin fired the Minister of Education. Dmitry Livanov, who turned into an extremely odious figure, was replaced by an employee of the presidential administration, Olga Vasilyeva, who was practically unknown to the general public.
And so that all the numerous "fans" of the ex-minister of education rejoiced even more, they treated him in the same style in which the Russian tsars treated the boyars who fell into disgrace. Dmitry Livanov, of course, was not put on the stake. But the new position granted to him by Vladimir Putin sounds like an outright mockery. The Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for Trade and Economic Relations with Ukraine - against the background of the current "good" relations between Moscow and Kiev, the owner of such a "dust-free job" is not to be envied at all.
What is the reason for such interesting personnel changes? In order to answer this question, it is enough to take a quick look at the calendar. The decree on the resignation of Dmitry Livanov was signed by VVP on August 19. And in less than a month - on September 18 - elections to the State Duma are to be held in the country. Naturally, our government is interested in Russian voters approaching this event with the utmost responsibility - they voted properly. And the Kremlin also understands that in order for voters to vote properly, they need to create a variety of incentives to the maximum. The resignation of Dmitry Livanov is one of such incentives. In the best pre-election traditions, the now former Minister of Education was made a "ritual sacrifice."
Of course, voters are not fools either. If they had a choice, they would prefer not "the minister's head on a platter", but something more material and tangible - for example, some additional social payments or other good news of a financial nature. And it is possible that in the few weeks remaining before the elections, such “good news” will still follow. But the fact that the government began the process of cajoling voters with a demonstrative flogging of the Minister of Education does not surprise me at all. As our dear Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev recently said, "there is no money." The state does not have the physical ability to indulge citizens with "bread". Therefore, it is necessary to focus on "spectacles".
Although the newly appointed Minister of Education Olga VASILIEVA is not known to the general public, a poster with her photo and a quote surprisingly turned up on the territory of the Tavrida Youth Forum. It was there that President Putin came after he announced the resignation of Livanov.
But this is all, as they say, the political side of the issue - a side that is of great interest to the Russian political elite, but not to the broad masses. Citizens of the Russian Federation are worried about something else: will it be possible to reverse or at least slow down the process of progressive degradation of the education system that is clearly emerging in our country with the help of a change of minister? Unfortunately, the answer to this question is far from clear.
To be honest, until today I did not even suspect the existence of Olga Vasilyeva, whom the GDP appointed as the new Minister of Education. But her previous position sounds like deputy head of the Kremlin's public projects department. And in my eyes, this is a kind of quality mark. The head of this department, Pavel Zenkovich, despite his non-publicity, is one of the brightest Kremlin officials, a man of action, a figure who is not interested in creating unnecessary papers as much as possible, but in real changing our lives for the better.
Perhaps this assessment of mine is overly subjective and personal. But I am inclined to give Olga Vasilyeva a fairly significant credit of trust. However, is it enough to change the minister of education in order to change for the better the state of affairs in this extremely important area of our life for all? It seems to me that the change of the minister can only be the beginning of the process of getting our education system out of the impasse in which it is now. If everything is limited to the change of minister, then things are bad.
I do not consider myself a great authority in the field of pedagogy. But in order to give our education system a two or a one, this, in fact, is not required. Once upon a time, the Soviet education system allowed the USSR to catch up and overtake the United States in the technological race. The modern Russian model of public education has real chances to throw our country into the third world. We found ourselves in a trap created by a combination of incompetence, quite good and even noble ideas, and an ill-conceived transfer of Western educational standards to our soil. As a result, schools and universities are churning out "specialists" who are not able to think and do not know the basics, but who are brilliant at putting a tick in the box.
Based on all this, I want to address our authorities with the most serious petition - to address not as a journalist, but as an elector: thank you, good gentlemen, for the gift in the form of Livanov's dismissal. I don’t know about others, but I really appreciated this gift. But remember that the next day after the election, life in the country will not end and the need to improve things in the field of education will not disappear. I hope that before the 2018 presidential elections, the Kremlin will have no reason to give the population another gift in the form of the dismissal of the now new Minister of Education - the current heroine of the day, Olga Vasilyeva.
Personnel pandemonium continues. There are no surprises - there is a month left before the elections. The best time to appoint new people - there is a media effect, but not a real one, they simply do not have time to screw up.
The new victim is the Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov. His resignation did not surprise anyone; in the government, Livanov has long turned into a whipping boy. There are such people - so unpopular that they are kept in order to be removed at the right time for the sake of a reputation bonus. And now the moment has come: Medvedev, in his usual manner, talked to the teachers (“let them go to striptease if the salary is not satisfactory”, or something like that), but they still have to count votes for EP. Why punish the prime minister when there is a special Livanov for such things?
The minister was indeed unpopular. Especially among their subordinates - scientists, university leaders, school teachers. Not only did he pursue an unpleasant policy, but he was also naturally gifted with the special negative charisma of a Soviet official - the ability to quickly and effectively turn people against himself, without really doing anything for this. Livanov's resignation was delighted by everyone who dealt with the minister's office. A convenient figure: it is clear that Livanov himself did not invent his own policy - he was given tasks, he solved them. But he was an unpleasant person, and dissatisfaction with the decisions made from above turned into dissatisfaction with him personally. The minister himself tried quite conscientiously. It turned out ... according to Chernomyrdin - "as always."
Russian science and Russian education are full of problems. “The best Soviet education in the world”, if it once existed in the world (which we strongly doubt), has now turned into ruins. Science, higher education, school - all this requires reform, moreover, systemic and conceptual. And it’s not the damned nineties that are to blame here, but mostly the already semi-legendary Soviet era.
About science: I think everyone agrees that the Academy of Sciences has long turned into a bureaucratic department, which is much more interested in useful subordinated areas than any science. The reason is the Soviet class system with an absolutely anachronistic system of "scientific degrees", for which different varieties of sausage and household plots relied (most of all it resembles a medieval guild). Well, where is the hierarchy and sausage, there is clanism and feudal intrigue - is it up to science here when you need to share six acres?
About the higher education system: it is destroyed, primarily because in the Russian Federation the university gives first the status, then the right to hang out from the army, and only then education (optional). The statement that “the majority of the population of Russia does not need a higher education”, which so outraged everyone, is an absolute truth. Communication shops and provincial offices are full of masters in economics and PR who know absolutely nothing about economics and PR. These people spent five years of their lives (the best five years) on an empty ritual - fighting yawning and falling asleep in lectures, playing on the phone, then going to drink, at the end they give a crust so that mom falls behind. In the Russian Federation, there is a monstrous inflation of higher education, which hits, among other things, those universities where they really teach something.
Well, the post-Soviet school, a huge vicious circle of methods, teaching staff, state relations. It is especially funny that teachers (people, for a moment, directly responsible for shaping the future) and school principals have long turned into the main "Putin's state employees" and an organic part of the corruption system. And it's not just about forging elections (that's okay), but simply about collecting tribute from parents and students. “My first corruption in my life”, a set for children from eight years old. What can a plump fifty-year-old aunt teach your child, who regularly humiliates herself in front of the next Churov and shakes money “to repair the class” little by little, because “such is life”? It is clear why - to be a good Russian.
In short, there are a lot of problems in Livanov's department, and he did not solve any of them. And where I tried, it turned out as always - to take a unified state exam, which on paper looked quite reasonable, but in practice turned into a monstrous religious rite, in preparation for which children are simply forgotten to learn to write (a curious interview was published a month ago by an associate professor of journalism at Moscow State University - he admits there that modern freshmen, after ten years of preparation for placing checkmarks in tests, write by ear like Tajik guest workers). The matter is absolutely not facilitated by the Kremlin, which every now and then tries to adapt the school to something useful in the economy: “Let's scam patriotic education for children? And if Orthodoxy is added? Listen, maybe send them for potatoes, huh? Livanov's resignation is unlikely to change anything here.
Another thing is interesting: Livanov could at the very least be called a technocrat, that is, a technical specialist who stands outside the ideology, "we were given a task - I solved the task." His successor is a man of ideas and fury. Which will do all the same, only with a twinkle and administrative excitement. Why the end result will only get worse.
The public has already noticed that Livanov followed in the footsteps of another unpopular minister - Zurabov. Togo, too, was demonstratively removed at the right time and sent as an ambassador to Ukraine. But now there is already one ambassador, and besides, he is simply not allowed into Kiev. Therefore, Livanov got the post of special representative for commercial and industrial relations. The former minister was put on the bench. Sent to gather dust in the closet - so, just in case. Will they take him out? We are in the Russian Federation, they can get it.
Anton Popov (S&P)
PS. Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed eight generals from the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
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Minister of Education and Science Dmitry left his post, an official was appointed in his place. Earlier today, unconfirmed information about the resignation of the minister, who has held this post since 2012, was leaked to the media. The fact that the resignation of the head of the department was already discussed the day before was confirmed to Gazeta.Ru by two sources in the education system at once.
“In recent days, it has been in the air,” a source in the Ministry of Education told Gazeta.Ru.
Shortly thereafter, the resignation of the minister was officially confirmed - it was accepted by President Vladimir.
The decision on this was announced by President Vladimir Putin in Crimea, where he arrived to meet with members of the Security Council, as well as to visit the All-Russian Youth Forum "Tavrida".
Vladimir Putin agreed with the proposal of Prime Minister Dmitry a to appoint Olga Vasilyeva, an employee of the presidential administration, as the new head.
At the same time, it became known about the new position of the former minister: Livanov will become the special representative of the head of state for trade and economic relations with Ukraine. “Okay, we will do that, I agree,” Putin said, responding to Medvedev's proposal during a meeting at the Belbek military airfield near Sevastopol.
At the same time, Putin dismissed the special representative for the development of trade and economic relations with Ukraine. The relevant decree published on the official portal of legal information.
At a meeting with the head of state, Medvedev noted that the government had intensified work on priority projects, including in the field of education. “In order to bring to life the ideas that have been formulated, new approaches and new powers are required, and in some cases new people,” the prime minister said. “To replace Dmitry Livanov, I would propose to appoint a woman, Olga Yuryevna Vasilyeva, who has a good track record,” the head of government emphasized.
It is known that on August 20, Livanov was supposed to attend the All-Russian Pedagogical Meeting in, which is taking place these days. The Ministry of Education and Science reacted to the resignation in the following way: “The Ministry of Education and Science faces the tasks aimed at developing education and science in Russia, including ensuring the availability of quality education for all segments of the population as the basis of social mobility, ensuring the current and future needs of the economy and the social sphere in professional personnel necessary qualifications, creation of conditions for the development of continuous education, creation of conditions for the development and effective use of scientific and technical potential. The Ministry is focused on fulfilling the tasks set and continues to work as usual, concentrating on preparing educational organizations for the start of the academic year.”
The new position of Livanov - the president's special representative for trade and economic relations with Ukraine - was previously held by former ambassadors to Ukraine: Mikhail Zurabov and. After the resignation of Mikhail Zurabov, Russia proposed a candidate to replace him, and the Ukrainian side refused to approve his figure. Therefore, at the moment, the interests of Russia in Ukraine are represented by a charge d'affaires, and the issue of appointing a new ambassador is suspended. Now, due to the absence of the ambassador, part of his functionality for trade and economic cooperation will be entrusted to Special Representative Livanov.
“As for the diplomatic representative, the ambassador (in Ukraine), we will talk separately. But the development of trade and economic ties should be in the field of our constant attention,” President Vladimir Putin said on Friday. “This is not a diplomatic job, and Livanov will now be engaged in purely economic relations, although in cooperation with the trade mission of Russia,” explains the interlocutor of Gazeta.Ru in the diplomatic environment. Before the Crimean referendum and the conflict in Donbas, Ukraine was one of Russia's leading economic partners. However, today the economic relations of the countries have degraded. The export of services from Ukraine to Russia in 2014 fell by more than half compared to 2013.
It is known that, as the Minister of Education, Livanov promoted quotas in universities for refugees from Ukraine.
In any case, Livanov will have to establish new connections in this country. Most of his acquaintances in Ukraine are Yanukovych government officials who left the political arena after the revolution. A Ukrainian political scientist suggested that Livanov would become Russia's unofficial ambassador to Ukraine, since Ukraine did not agree to Babich's candidacy. “Therefore, such a neutral option was chosen, an ambassador-understudy, an unofficial, illegitimate, non-status representative of the president, who will actually begin to pave the way for ambassadorial functions and, in fact, will largely play the role of an ambassador,” the expert told Interfax-Ukraine.
The positions of Dmitry Livanov were among the weakest among the members of the government. United Russia regularly criticized Livanov in the Duma, at the beginning of the year of his United Russia party.
“Livanov's work does not find support in the party. We repeatedly criticized his activities, but there was no reaction, ”an interlocutor close to the leadership of the United Russia explained in February the negative attitude of the party members.
Unofficially, there were rumors in academic circles and those close to the Kremlin that the head of the committee on corruption or the chairman of the Duma committee on education could become the new minister of education.
Criticizing Livanov's speech at the government hour at the beginning of the year, Nikonov said that in his report the minister avoided the real problems that concern pupils, students, scientists and teachers - for example, lowering the literacy of young people entering universities, delays in paying salaries in the regions . According to him, “after it was forbidden to make business a nightmare, everyone rushed to make nightmares of schools, kindergartens and universities.”
The resignation may work to increase the rating of United Russia, political analyst Abbas is sure. According to him, much depends on the official interpretation of the resignation. “You should not hope that we supposedly dismissed an unpopular minister and that is enough. The very fact of his resignation indicates not only that the government is cleaning itself up, but also that there are serious problems in the industry. If serious explanatory work is not carried out, then the dominant point of view may become that all reforms in the education system have failed and the authorities are desperately looking for a switchman,” Gallyamov argues.
Meanwhile, Livanov consistently defended the interests of the ministry in terms of funding.
As Gazeta.Ru found out, at the end of July, at one of the meetings with Dmitry Medvedev from the ministry, that in the event of a reduction in funding in 2017, 40% of budget places in universities will have to be reduced, there will not be enough money for scholarships for students, and without work by 2019, 10.3 thousand researchers from universities, the Russian Academy of Sciences and will remain.
During the reign of Livanov, there was also criticism of the minister from the scientific community, connected not only with the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences. For more than three years, the media have been constantly reporting scandals related to the written-off dissertations of various officials, but the fighters against plagiarism in dissertations were dissatisfied with the actions of the ministry to improve the situation.
Contrary to the requests of Dissernet activists, from January 1, 2014, the statute of limitations for appealing candidate and doctoral dissertations in Russia began to be ten years, while those who defended their dissertations before 2011 can now not worry about written off scientific work.
“I want to ask Vasilyeva the following questions: will you fire plagiarist rectors (more than 70), and if not, why not? Will you dissolve those dissenting councils that distributed false dissertations (the lists were transferred to the Ministry of Education and Science and the Higher Attestation Commission and were published on Dissernet many times)? Will you withdraw from the expert councils of the VAK those persons who contributed to the defense of false dissertations? asks the co-founder of Dissernet.
It is known that Olga Vasilyeva moved to the ministerial post from the position of deputy head of the public projects department of the presidential administration.
This department is headed , and the work of the structure is supervised by the first deputy head of the presidential administration .
Previously, Vasilyeva worked in the government's department of culture. In 2013, she gave a closed lecture on patriotism in front of Kommersant. At the lecture, the official talked about the unification of the people under Stalin during the war, this happened, in her opinion, through the popularization of pre-revolutionary Russian history and literature. One of Gazeta.Ru's sources describes her as the author of 160 articles and eight monographs, coming from a school and scientific environment.
According to the source, she interacted with the party in power, lectured as part of the Candidate project, and her “lectures were with shades of moralizing, looked like propaganda.”
At first, the new minister will have to make great efforts to gain support in this environment and prove his effectiveness, the deputy head believes.
Sociologists noted that Livanov is the most unpopular minister and most respondents rate his activities at two points.
Vasilyeva at the end of June spoke at the All-Russian Youth Educational Forum "Territory of Meanings on the Klyazma". According to the forum's website, she chose the history of "the formation of the national idea of Russia - from the period of formation to the present" as her topic. “Our country is the only country in the world that after 1917 in 1991 experienced the second socio-political crisis. Both in the post-revolutionary period until 1934, and in the period from 1991 to 2002, they did not talk about patriotism, the very concepts of patriotism, love for the Fatherland, heroism were eradicated, absent from the public mind, ”said the official.
On Klyazma, she talked about the patriotism of the heroes of the Second World War. “Vassilyeva, as a history teacher, noted the importance of addressing in this education both to the biography of individual personalities of the military era, and to the heroes of our time, such as who died on March 17, 2016 in the line of duty during the battles for the city of Palmyra in Syria, or - a Russian officer who, at the cost of his life, saved his subordinate soldiers during the explosion of a combat grenade, ”the forum website says.
Two different sources of Gazeta.Ru reported that Vasilyeva is deeply religious and personally acquainted with Patriarch Kirill. Vasilyeva holds the position of head of the department of state-confessional relations at the RANEPA. The sphere of scientific interests of Vasilyeva is the history of the Russian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century, state-church relations in the Soviet period. The total work experience in the field of education is 36 years. Vasilyeva is a doctor of historical sciences and a member of the International Association for the History of Religions.
The first deputy chairman of the synodal department of the Moscow Patriarchate for relations between the Church, society and the media said that after the appointment of Olga Vasilyeva to the post of Minister of Education and Science, the dialogue between the state will acquire a “more meaningful” character. “I have no doubt that the dialogue will be easier and more productive,” Shchipkov said.
The State Duma Committee on Education welcomed the news of Livanov's resignation positively. Committee member from Oleg Smolin added that he personally knows Olga Vasilyeva well
"as a person with a position in defense of Russian education."
“I understand that the minister is a partly forced person, he is obliged to play according to the rules that are proposed to the government team as a whole. But I hope that Olga Yuryevna will use her powers as a minister in order to preserve the best that is still left in our education system. I hope that the course of educational policy will be, if not changed, then at least significantly adjusted,” the parliamentarian stressed. He explained that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation hopes, in particular, that under Vasilyeva it will be possible to “initiate changes in the Federal Target Program for the Development of Education” or at least stop the rate of reduction in the number of universities - according to , the five-year plan to reduce the number of universities and their branches has already been “overfulfilled ”, and the communists hope that the Ministry of Education will at least slow down. The head of the committee, Vyacheslav Nikonov (United Russia), noted that Livanov and Vasilyeva are “different people”: “Livanov is a tough technocratic leader who is used to pushing through his decisions, breaking through his knees. And Vasilyeva is a man of meanings, a man of dialogue, a conversation that will establish a dialogue with the pedagogical community.”
Education Minister Dmitry Livanov resigns, agreeing with the decision of President Vladimir Putin. He will be replaced by Olga Vasilyeva, who previously worked in the administration of the head of state. The former minister himself will oversee economic ties with Ukraine. Livanov is one of the most criticized ministers in the government. According to polls, Russians estimated his activities at 2.6 points. In addition, deputies repeatedly spoke for his resignation. Lenta.ru recalled what Minister Livanov remembered for, and thought about what to expect from his successor.
Treatment of wounds
Most of all, Livanov will be remembered for the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The corresponding bill suddenly appeared at the end of June 2013, becoming an unpleasant surprise for Russian scientists. The main claim was that the reform was developed without the participation of the RAS staff themselves, and Vladimir Fortov, who was elected president of the academy at the end of May 2013, was not allowed to participate in the discussion at first.
The reform implied the formation of a "big RAN", which would include the RAN, RAAS and RAMS, as well as the creation of an agency of scientific organizations. The draft law on the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences was adopted in the first reading in July 2013. After the intervention of academician Yevgeny Primakov and his meeting with President Vladimir Putin, the head of state promised to take into account the opinion of scientists when preparing the next versions of the bill.
A couple of days later, the law was adopted in the second reading. However, after some time it was rolled back, which, however, did not reduce the degree of discontent among scientists. Even the postponement of the consideration of the second and third readings did not calm the scientific community, setting off rallies and speeches, including unauthorized ones.
Most of all, academicians were dissatisfied with the clause of the law, according to which the institutes were subordinate to the federal executive body - the so-called Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations. Despite active resistance, the law was still adopted in this version (the second and third readings were held in September 2013).
From now on, FASO managed the Academy of Sciences and disposed of its property. Soon the head of the agency, financier Mikhail Kotyukov, was appointed. At the mercy of the RAS gave the function of expertise. Nevertheless, a one-year moratorium was imposed on transactions with the property of the academy, which was subsequently extended several times.
Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov / Kommersant
The reform of the RAS has not been completed to this day. A lot of advisory bodies have been created (for example, the NCC), and Russian scientists have drowned in the abyss of document flow. In the meantime, FASO continues to measure the performance of subordinate institutions, resolve property conflicts and unite scientific institutions into enlarged structures. And also to engage in the restoration of INION, which burned down in January 2015.
Not competitors
The project to increase the competitiveness of Russian universities "5-100" was not accompanied by luck either. In 2013, 15 universities were selected and allocated 42 billion rubles (subsequently another 2.5 billion were added) to increase competitiveness and get into the top 100 best universities according to a number of educational rankings. In 2015, six more universities were added to the program, and the government decided to allocate 14.5 billion rubles annually for the project.
In November 2015, the first results of the "5-100" were summed up: Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets announced the serious successes of Russian universities and the achievement of high positions in the rankings. However, in January 2016, the program was criticized in the Accounts Chamber: they reported that none of the universities that received money could reach the top hundred of the world university rankings.
In particular, it turned out that in 2014 some universities received from the Ministry of Education and Science more than promised, while others received less. Universities also got it - some either misused the allocated funds, or did not use them at all. The Ministry of Education and Science did not agree with the claims, and the project continued.
dissergate
The campaign against plagiarism in dissertations full of scandals will also be associated with the name of Dmitry Livanov. In this he was assisted by his deputy Igor Fedyukin. In early 2013, the commission, headed by Fedyukin, in the course of checking doctoral and master's theses in history defended at the Moscow Pedagogical State University, revealed numerous violations. At the same time, the free network community "Dissernet" was actively working in this direction. As a result of the investigation, 11 people were deprived of their academic degrees.
The wave of fight against plagiarism grew. Many public figures and politicians were accused of incorrect borrowings. As a result, the head of the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC), Felix Shamkhalov, left his post. The wave of indignation on the part of those accused of plagiarism grew, and already in May 2013, Fedyukin resigned. The work of his commission actually stopped, and accusations of plagiarism rained down on people from Livanov's entourage at MISiS.
Bless and save
Dissertations with plagiarism and scandals with universities and the Russian Academy of Sciences did not end there. In 2015, theology was approved as a scientific specialty in Russia. This happened after the request of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill, who spoke to members of the Federation Council and deputies of the State Duma. This initiative caused widespread discontent in the scientific community. The Higher Attestation Commission promised that an expert commission for awarding the relevant academic degrees would be created only by 2017. However, everything happened much earlier - on August 11, 2016.
Merger and downsizing
Dmitry Livanov did not disregard school education either. However, in fairness it should be said that in this area the main reforms - the Unified State Examination, the new educational standard, the optimization of educational institutions - were started and developed by his predecessor, Andrey Fursenko. Livanov simply continued his undertakings.
Fursenko got all the hairpins and spitting about the introduction of the Unified State Examination. By the time Livanov arrived, the Unified Examination system was already working without significant failures. The minister only instructed Rosobrnadzor to further improve it. And in this, by the way, he succeeded. It was under Livanov that the USE-tourism was defeated, and the number of cheaters decreased many times. Including through the use of technical means - video cameras and cellular jammers.
This is where the positive impressions seem to end. The school reform met with a lot of negative responses in the pedagogical and parental communities. Thousands of people came out to rallies against changes in this area. However, opponents of the reform failed to achieve noticeable results.
Most public educational institutions have switched to the so-called state order system: that is, in order to receive funding, a school needs to demonstrate its profitability. If earlier the status of the institution, the achievements of its students and social significance influenced the amount of funding, now the number of students is the primary evaluation criterion. Rural schools were the first to suffer from such optimization. Where classes could not be filled, schools were simply closed.
At the same time, the process of enlarging schools and merging them into educational centers began. The reform equalized special schools, gymnasiums with a bias and ordinary secondary schools, depriving advanced institutions of the right to additional funding for in-depth study of subjects, individual lessons, project and research activities, medical and psychological support for students, round-the-clock stay, etc. The egalitarian model was tested in Moscow. As a result, the best Moscow schools, which occupied the top lines of the ratings, were on the verge of bankruptcy.
Photo: Alexey Malgavko / RIA Novosti
Not just a textbook
Another controversial educational initiative of Livanov's time is a unified history textbook. In 2013, Vladimir Putin suggested thinking about creating textbooks that would present the history of the country within the framework of a single concept, within the framework of the interconnection of all stages of Russian history and respect for all pages of our past. The Ministry of Education undertook the implementation, and, accordingly, the head of the department was also under fire. In particular, opponents said that the desire to impose on schoolchildren a unified view of the history of the country returns us to the times of universal unanimity.
The creators of the textbooks faced a difficult task. They had to tell schoolchildren about such controversial episodes of our history as the Stalinist repressions, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the war in Chechnya. Obviously, in the process of writing, the team of authors encountered insoluble contradictions and a single textbook never appeared. In August 2014, Livanov announced that instead of a line of textbooks, a “single historical and cultural standard” would be developed, on which the authors of all textbooks would rely.
Personnel patriot
Unlike Livanov, who came to the ministry from the Institute of Steel and Alloys, Olga Vasilyeva is a strong humanist. The interlocutors of Lenta.ru, talking about the new head of the department, point to the academic experience of Vasilyeva: she managed to work in various educational institutions. In addition, she has experience of interaction with purely scientific structures. The new minister has several diplomas - first she graduated from the conductor and choral department of the Moscow Institute of Culture, and then the history department at the Pedagogical Institute and the faculty of international relations at the Diplomatic Academy. At the very end of the 80s, the future minister studied at the graduate school of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The sphere of scientific interests of Vasilyeva is called the history of the Orthodox Church. For example, in her Ph.D. thesis, she spoke about the “patriotic activities of the Russian Orthodox Church” during the Great Patriotic War. Throughout the restless nineties, Olga Vasilyeva worked at the Center for the History of Religion and the Church of the Historical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Having already gained academic experience, in 2002 she headed the Department of Religious Studies at the Academy of Civil Service under the President.
A decade later, she was appointed deputy director of the department of culture in the Russian government, a year later - to a comparable position in the public projects department of the Presidential Administration (AP).
This division does not have a large budget or broad powers, the media noted. The task of this structure, first of all, is to ensure coordination - with departments, the government, universities and representatives of the professional community. An important fact is that the department is supervised by the first deputy head of the Presidential Administration, Vyacheslav Volodin, who, as Lenta.ru sources note, has repeatedly noted Vasilyeva's professional qualities.
Colleagues Vasilyeva paid attention to the fact that she did not stop teaching throughout her career, including working at the AP. At the Academy of National Economy, she is still listed as a professor at the department of state-confessional relations and lectures on religious topics - for example, on state-church relations. The list of publications is appropriate - in particular, the material on the political management of the ethno-cultural process is mentioned.
The scientific interests of Professor Vasilyeva were also reflected in her activities after the transition from the academic environment to administrative posts. She regularly spoke at events where ideological issues were discussed. So, she attended discussions organized by the All-Russian Popular Front about "conservatism as an ideology of development."
Vasilyeva, however, did not touch upon educational issues directly in public and from a specific angle. For example, the deputy head of the administration of the Presidential Administration gave lectures on patriotism. Then she cited the example of patriotic education in the United States, where the morning in many schools begins with an oath of allegiance to the national flag.
Only the lazy today do not criticize the quality of knowledge in domestic universities. Moreover, criticism comes both from the teachers themselves, who are dissatisfied with the conditions in which the reform has placed them, and employers, who are dissatisfied with the fact that they cannot find the necessary young specialists in the labor market, and are forced to spend time and resources on the actual retraining of yesterday's graduates. Minister of Education Dmitry Livanov himself does not deny the obvious, setting Russian universities a specific task - to return to the quality level of the USSR.
For the last ten years, the positions of Russian universities in world rankings have been steadily falling. And since 2007, not a single Russian university, except Moscow State University, has been included in the internationally respected annual list of the 500 best educational institutions in the world.
One can, of course, console the patriotic ego with the fact that this rating evaluates not the quality of knowledge, but the reputation of the universities themselves. However, if we turn to the world quality ratings, then the picture is not very comforting. Only Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University made their way from Russia to the Times global ranking "400 best universities 2011 - 2012", and even then at the end of the second and third hundred, respectively.
USE lowers the bar
Let's descend from the heights of international rankings to the ground and look at the everyday life of the post-reform Russian higher education. The USE appeared in Russia in 2001 and since then has become a mandatory national standard, based on which one can judge the quality of the entire system.
From year to year, experts note a general decrease in the number of test scores. A good example is the exam in mathematics. Last year, the number of graduates who passed it with 100 points decreased by eight times compared to the results of 2013. As a result, the minimum threshold for passing the exam was lowered to 20 points instead of 24.
A similar situation developed last year with the main exam - in the Russian language: Russian schoolchildren failed it. Especially a lot of losers turned out to be in the North Caucasus. Result: I had to reduce the threshold minimum by 12 points, since many students simply did not master the previous threshold of 36 points.
In fact, the general decrease in the passing score for passing the Unified State Examination, descended from above, only confirms the trend of trouble, masking the increasing ignorance of applicants by lowering the lower bar of knowledge required from them. The same last year's decision of Rosobrnadzor on points in the Russian language, according to the head of department Sergey Kravtsov, was taken to avoid a situation where many graduates were left without a certificate. At the same time, Rosobrnadzor refused to name the percentage of schoolchildren who failed the exam, citing the fact that it was not fundamental.
Educators speak about the state of affairs in the industry more frankly. “It turned out based on the results of 11 years of schooling that we did not teach children anything. This year, the threshold of knowledge, which allowed to issue a certificate, is 3 tasks on the topic of elementary school grades 5-6. Moreover, it turned out that the results that graduates show are even worse than the results that graduates show after the 9th grade. We sadly have to admit that the education system has given a systemic failure, ”stated the honorary worker of education of the Russian Federation Dmitry Gushchin a year ago.
“Teachers, parents, the country's public have been sounding the alarm for several years about the low level of language and speech literacy of secondary school graduates, and the population as a whole, urging the state to take drastic measures to correct the situation. However, as we can see, there are still no tangible shifts ... There is no need to talk about a turning point, a sharp turn for the better in the country as a whole, ”the head of the Federation Council echoes him. Valentina Matvienko.
The Minister of Education himself does not deny the obvious Dmitry Livanov, directly pointing to a sharp drop in the quality of education.
Budget billions for ... ignorance
Opponents of the USE say that in its current form this system does not work, and its failure revealed the total backwardness of the “reformed” Russian education. Moreover, a lot of scandals traditionally arise around the USE, including financial ones. The report of the public movement "Obrnadzor" "Anatomy of the Unified State Examination", in fact, calls last year's Unified State Examination a failure.
1,240,643,800 rubles were spent on the organization of the 2014 exam, that is, four times more than in 2013, when the expenses amounted to a little more than 312 million rubles.
The ignorance of modern high school students and freshmen can kill on the spot. A few years ago, videos with elementary video questions that a journalist asked random passersby aged 18 to 20 resonated in the blogosphere. Young people answered seriously, for example, that “the Holocaust is probably some kind of shore,” and Yesenin killed Pushkin in a duel.
Criticism ignored and ignored
The fact that the Unified State Examination is killing the domestic education system was written and warned back in 2008. Criticism of the Unified State Examination in 2011 was supported by the then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, noting the justice of the reproaches against the main brainchild of the educational reform. Increased public scrutiny of the exam was cited as one of the corrective measures.
And here is 2012: “Dissatisfaction with the Unified State Exam is growing in society, but the authorities ignore these sentiments”
The meaning of the reform was to move away from the allegedly bad (outdated, corrupt and the list goes on) Soviet educational system. As a result, they gave birth to a new system, calling it "reform". As a result, after 14 years, the low quality of education is already recognized by the relevant minister Dmitry Livanov. The official cites as an example not the high standards of education resulting from the reforms, but the high standards of Soviet education, for the sake of rejecting which the reform was started.
Russian society also gave its assessment of the USE. According to the Levada Center, a record (48%) number of Russian citizens, since 2004, believes that the USE assesses the level of knowledge of schoolchildren worse than a regular exam.
Now, in a crisis, the country is in a situation where without investing in knowledge and human capital, there will simply be no breakthrough in any of the industries. At the same time, the collapse in oil prices and the reduction in budget revenues are not the most favorable background for serious reforms, which are impossible without financial injections.
There is no way back
Declared by the Minister Dmitry Livanov plans to return to "Soviet quality standards" would seem to offer a simple and clear conclusion. If those quality standards are recognized as a kind of exemplary beacon to which one should strive, then maybe it’s not worth reinventing the wheel? According to common sense, the Soviet methods of organizing the educational process are not so bad, since they produced the standards of knowledge quality that are so highly valued by the current Minister Dmitry Livanov. Unlike the USE.
Are the plans announced by Dmitry Livanov to return to the quality of education of the times of the USSR, or is it just another attempt at inept bureaucratic PR, like big words about import substitution?
It seems that with the current introductions, the only possible way to implement the Lebanese idea is to invent a time machine that will return Russian education, together with the relevant minister and author of the reform, Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Fursenko, right in the Soviet era. This will mean admitting one's own mistakes and the fact that the post-Soviet education, at best, stood still, and at worst, gave back.
Of course, another answer to the question is possible, but it is even more futuristic. As one popular anecdote says, if the establishment is not in demand, it is necessary not to rearrange the beds, but to change the staff.