Secondary School Monetization Act. School education is threatened by monetization. What do our people's representatives say about this?

Photo: Denis Medvedev / PhotoXPress.RU

Have fun gnawing on the granite of science! It would be worth it.

From January 1, 2011, we will begin a new life again. The State Duma and the Federation Council adopted a law that reforms budgetary organizations.

Behind the complex language lies a simple goal - to allow schools and hospitals to charge money for additional services. Education officials assure us that funding will not decrease, that it is better to take money legally, and not put it in the pocket of a dishonest director... Is this so, how does the school actually live and how much parents are already spending on education - correspondents looked into this and AiF experts.

While the management of most Russian schools is thinking about where to make money now - from their own students or something else, the new law is not even being discussed in the villages - there are no options at all to get a penny anywhere. But children still need to be taught.

“Where can I put my bag here?” - "In terms of? Place it where you want, we don’t have any theft here. 225 students, 15 teachers - everything is in full view,” Lyubov Nikolaevna Tsybina, director of the Belovskaya secondary school in the Belgorod region, smiles and opens her right palm, showing exactly how her students and teachers are visible on it. “Put down your bag and sit down to eat semolina porridge while it’s warm.” I eat, trying to feel with my tongue the indispensable attributes of all school cereals in the world - nasty slippery lumps. There is none of them.

Doesn't smell like computers

“Every morning our children drink milk with a bun, eat porridge or fruit. Free, at the expense of the regional budget, there are many poor and disadvantaged families, where will they get the money? For example, we have 32 children from large families - they also have free lunches, how can they survive otherwise? Yes, you go and look - you will see for yourself how we live.” I go, look and smell - what does a rural school smell like?

In the medical office - for some reason it was sweet. I ask nurse Victoria Nikolaevna what the children complained about today. For headaches. They were scientifically treated with citramone, and at home they were taken out into the yard to breathe, given tea and fed chocolate (that’s where it comes from, the candy smell!) to improve blood pressure and mood.

The library smells of old books. The touching stands “Living with a book is a life-long effort”, volumes of Cervantes or Gorky, outside the author’s regalia, are equally carefully and lovingly pasted up. “Our textbooks are free, we try) no-repeat scroll right 2px; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; padding-right: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">do not burden families financially,” explains Lyubov Nikolaevna, “but to buy the missing ones, you need another 111 thousand rubles.” This money is not in the budget, and there is nothing to take from parents - Does this mean that one day textbooks will disappear altogether?

The first-graders' classroom smells of childhood. In the closet there is a box with the inscription “Masha the Confused”, in which forgotten things are funny mixed: paints with mittens, socks with well-read magazines. There are no expensive paid “pre-first-class” departments, which not a single fashionable Moscow school can do without. In the spring, school teachers begin to come to the local kindergarten and prepare children for the start of school in a playful way. They take everyone. In the summer there is an adaptation camp - future first-graders come to the Belovskaya school to play and get acquainted.

The computer science classroom smells... Unfortunately, there is no smell of computers here. It only costs four bulky machines. Not a single laptop: if you need to show something in another class, they drag a heavy antediluvian monster with all the wires, blocks and “spare parts”. At the same time, students regularly take prizes at computer Olympiads. How so? “It’s all about the computer science teacher,” the director whispers to me, “this is our former graduate, Nikolai Vladimirovich Molodik, an excellent student, smart. He disappears from morning to night at school, he loves computers, and the children love him. All the girls are in love with him, but in a good way.”

The canteen smells of cutlets and mashed potatoes - it’s already lunch; in the assembly hall - mastic and enthusiasm, and in most classrooms - old desks from the last century. They spent two years doing repairs, but there was sorely not enough money for everything. We managed to install a Euro-window somewhere, but they just can’t fit the blinds. They equipped the gym with a shower and toilet, but there was very little sports equipment. The situation is reminiscent of a first-grader I met in the corridor: at the top there is an elegant white bow, at the bottom there are carefully mended tights...

How much does love cost?

At the Belovskaya school, every teacher knows everything about every child. “To keep children from going crazy, drinking, and smoking, as they show in the TV series “School,” we need to keep them busy,” says the school director. - Here they are looking for the graves of unknown soldiers, and they are involved in a beekeeping club. Our Ruslan Bukhanov, a smart guy, became the winner of the All-Russian competition “Yunnat”. And the children in the “Ladushki” ensemble dance, and learn English, and plant trees, and take photographs, and go to competitions. Thank God, in 2006 the region provided a school bus under the governor’s program, but it’s hard to find gasoline. However, keeping them occupied is not enough,” the school director sighs, “children need to be loved more, they really lack this in their families.” Both in the city and in the village. Some parents drink, some arrange their personal lives, some earn money, but there is neither time nor energy left to love the child. So they walk around unloved, so teachers try not only to give children knowledge, but also love.”

For knowledge and love from 8 am to 6-8 pm (free additional classes for children - until the end of the day!) a rural school teacher receives pennies. The average salary of a teacher without an incentive part is 11,800 rubles (fashionable suede sandals cost the same in the central stores of Belgorod!), the base salary of a teacher or social teacher is about 8 thousand rubles. And at the same time, they do not extract money from parents “for school needs” (in the village there is nowhere for people to get “contributions for blinds”), on the contrary, they try to minimize the family’s expenses for school.

President Medvedev told me: “If I were the state, I would allocate more money to the school, because all the most important things in life begin with it.” Eleventh-grader Mikhail Medvedev knows what he’s talking about - he is the president of the children’s self-government organization “Constellation” at the Belovskaya school. I agree with President Medvedev. Naked enthusiasm is commendable, of course, but it can only make you freeze. Belovskaya school does not need video cameras in the toilet, like in pretentious Moscow schools. Even without this, they teach children no worse, and even better: their percentage of admission to universities would be the envy of any metropolitan gymnasium. But the library needs modern books - and they cost 300 rubles. are standing.

We thank the Education Department of the Belgorod District Administration for their assistance.

Expert opinion

Efim Rachevsky, member of the Public Chamber, director of Education Center No. 548 (Moscow):

Our Education Center has been providing paid services for more than 10 years, because the law has allowed it since 1992. The new bill provides additional opportunities. For example, if the school has http://b2bvideo.ru/images/icons/info.gif) no-repeat scroll right 2px; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; padding-right: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">status of an autonomous educational institution (AOU), then it can have an account in a commercial http://b2bvideo.ru/images/icons/info.gif) no-repeat scroll right 2px; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; padding-right: 15px; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">bank, take out loans, rent out part of the space and manage all the funds earned. True, all the risks will again fall on the school.

It is important to understand that you will only pay for services that are not included in the state-approved educational program. For example, your child only has 3 hours of English a week, but you want 10 hours. Then you can request additional classes and pay the school for them. But no one has the right to force anyone to be a consumer of paid services. You will enter into an agreement with the school, which will spell out the rights and obligations of the parties. In this case, relations between family and school will be regulated by the Law on Consumer Rights.

From the editor

Quite recently we wrote about the fate of the brilliant mathematician Grigory Perelman (see AiF No. 14). He possessed enormous talent from birth, but without the opportunities of a special school, mathematical clubs and the help of disinterested teachers, he could hardly have risen to the top of world science. Judging by the way this scientist lives now, it is unlikely that his family ever had a lot of money. Now let’s imagine that somewhere a new genius has already been born. And he needs to be paid for every additional lesson that develops his talent. In 30 years, will we be proud of the new Russian who has solved the millennium problem?

It turns out strange: on the one hand, the country is putting all its efforts into the construction of the Skolkovo innovation city, but on the other hand, it is leaving only the most elusive guarantees of universal free education. And no matter how good intentions explain the need for a new law, its authors may not have a very good idea of ​​life in the Russian hinterland. It largely revolves around local schools. And without budget support they cannot survive, and they have no one to take money from. Do legislators know about this?

In Russian schools, the modernization of the secondary education system continues, the purpose of which is still not entirely clear to many teachers and parents of schoolchildren. Dmitry Medvedev's address to the Federal Assembly, which once again spoke about the need to improve the quality of education and the measures that the president considers necessary to take to achieve this goal, alarmed teachers even more. How do representatives of the pedagogical community feel about the reform of secondary education?

In 2010, Dmitry Medvedev said, the transformations enshrined in the special plan “Our New School” must be implemented. For example, the unified state exam will remain the main, but not the only way to test the quality of education. In addition, those who are “able to provide higher-quality specialized education for high school students” will be recruited to work in schools. According to the editor of the site "Zavuch.info" Evgeniy Baranovsky, teachers do not approve of these innovations:

– The teaching community does not understand where we are going. It seems to me that teachers and parents need to be informed more. We probably need to determine what kind of graduate we want to see in 2020, where we are leading our education reform, who will work in educational institutions - people who take courses in teaching skills, or professional teachers. The president’s statements that people can work in schools after taking courses or master classes on working with children do not receive positive feedback from professional teachers...

One of the latest news published on the website "Zavuch.info" states that as part of the modernization of secondary schools, only three free lessons will remain in educational institutions. The second three watches will be financed by the state only 30 percent.

“We are absolutely confident in the reliability of our source of information,” he comments on the news. Evgeny Baranovsky. – Let’s compare the information from our source and the proposals made by the Ministry of Education, as well as the president’s statement that the education sector needs to attract managers from various sectors of the economy without pedagogical education (a manager, by definition, is probably not a teacher, but a person who knows how to look for money and earn). Next, we will take into account the consolidation of schools and per capita financing: how many children are in the school, the same amount of money is allocated to the school. Let's not forget other theses from the president's message - regarding equating commercial educational institutions with the status of state educational institutions... Probably, all this confirms the information from our source that Russian secondary education is moving towards exactly such a fee-based structure.

The Ministry of Education and Science denied this information, but did not comment. The reason for the appearance of information about the introduction of partially paid general education was explained by the Deputy Chairman of the RF State Duma Committee on Education Oleg Smolin:

– Rumors of this kind appeared back in 2004, when the Minister of Education and Science Andrei Fursenko, speaking in the Federation Council, made a proposal: to reduce the standards and teaching load by a quarter, to make a quarter of the lessons optional and, therefore, paid. And parents from the poorest families will be compensated for the costs of paying for these lessons. Then this caused massive indignation among citizens. Perhaps not everyone remembers that in June 2005, Vladimir Putin said: “On the contrary, we stand for a law on compulsory and free, publicly accessible complete secondary education.” By the way, such a law was adopted - albeit in a very truncated, distorted form. At the moment, in my understanding, neither the Constitution nor the current legislation without amendments makes it possible to introduce partial payment for secondary education.

On July 1, 2012, a law on the monetization of secondary education comes into force in Russia, which will seriously change the entire financing scheme of school institutions. What will it bring for schoolchildren, their parents, and most importantly, how will it change the quality of secondary education in the country?

What are the goals of monetizing secondary education?

All these innovations, which are also called school reform, are actually designed to obtain additional funding for schools and their teachers. As you know, most schools are in dire need of funding, the amount of which is completely insufficient. Underfunding has only led to an acute shortage of teaching staff in the provinces due to low wages, the difference in which across the regions of the country is several times (see the article “Average salaries of teachers in 2012”). Now, a number of services (lessons in some subjects) will be provided for a fee, which, according to legislators, should reduce corruption in schools and increase the level of education, since fees will be withdrawn only for subjects that are not included in the educational program.

What are the consequences of the monetization of secondary education for schoolchildren and their parents?

In fact, with the introduction of monetization of secondary education, the status of schools itself does not change in any way, only their status as free educational institutions changes. As everyone probably remembers, in the early 90s, most universities were also forced to switch to a paid form of education, but as recent studies show, the level of higher education in Russia as a whole has only worsened since the early 90s, and the level of corruption in universities increased significantly.

In addition, the adopted law on the monetization of secondary education no longer guarantees full budget funding for all school institutions, which means that the schools themselves will have to “patch the holes.”

And the most important thing that worries parents of students is what will be included in the free limit of lessons, and what price will they have to pay for these innovations? And their concerns are not unfounded. Already at the beginning of this year, as an experiment, the monetization of school education was carried out in the Southern Administrative District of Moscow. The free subject limit there included only 2 hours of Russian per week, 2 hours of mathematics, 3 hours of physical education and 3 hours of religion, and the parents of the students had to fork out an average of 5-6 thousand rubles per month! For Muscovites themselves, the amount does not seem to be critical, but in Moscow it differs significantly from the average salary in the country as a whole. And if we take the average salary, say, in the Ivanovo and Ryazan regions, and a middle-income family with two school-age children, then up to half of the family’s family budget can go to pay for the children’s normal school education, which in general will become unaffordable for many families.

Thus, the Government of the Russian Federation has presented many parents with a difficult choice: either deny themselves and their children everything so that their children receive a normal secondary education, or do not save, but give their children only basic knowledge, which will not be enough for them to enter universities.

In recent years, the Russian press and television have been filled with information materials in which the Russian education system is predicted to transition to a paid basis. The reason for such negative information is the signing by the President of Federal Law No. 83 “On amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation in connection with improving the legal status of state (municipal) institutions.”

This is not the first time that rumors that schooling will be paid have arisen. Following this law, most institutions related to the social sphere will switch to self-sufficiency from budget funding. The list of such institutions includes kindergartens, schools, and hospitals. A child can receive several basic subjects for free: mathematics, Russian, English, physical education - 2 hours per week, history - 1 hour per week. But other items will be paid.

According to preliminary calculations, the average cost of training will be 6-7 thousand rubles per month. And per year it turns out to be 54-70 thousand and approximately 630 thousand for the entire eleven-year period of study. Primary school remains free and the list of primary school subjects will also remain unchanged.

The authors of such negative articles convey the idea that nothing good can happen in this country. And even more so in the field of education. Thus, tension within society grows, creating the preconditions for a revolutionary mess. At the same time, conditions are being created for the introduction of “Western advanced educational technologies.”

All these statements can be contrasted with Article 43 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which states that

· Every citizen has the right to education.

· Public access and free preschool, basic general and secondary vocational education in state or municipal educational institutions and enterprises is guaranteed by the state.

· Everyone has the right to receive higher education at a state or municipal educational institution and at an enterprise on a competitive basis.

· Basic general education is compulsory.

So what to believe?

According to the Minister of Education Andrei Fursenko, nothing will change in budgetary educational institutions, only illegal fees will become legal. And if previously a certain part of the collected funds ended up in the pockets of the administration of the educational institution, now all the money will go only to the institution’s account.

Funds will be allocated to budget organizations as subsidies, and not as expense items. From the moment the new law comes into force, school directors themselves will be involved in the distribution of funds: for the renovation of classrooms, for the purchase of new equipment or for holding a graduation party.

Fursenko considers the adopted law useful, since such innovations can reduce the cost of education and will eliminate unauthorized fees for those services that are already paid for by the state. In addition, students will study for the same amount of time and study as many subjects as required by the Law of the Russian Federation.

Tatyana Nesterenko, Deputy Minister of Finance, says that the idea that some subjects in schools will be paid is wrong. The new law does not provide for a transition to paid education, she claims. Schools are required to fulfill government orders in the field of education, and do it for free. Only additional services or additional items will be charged.

Schools are classified as budgetary organizations. They may offer additional electives and paid clubs. However, schools have been engaged in this same activity before. In fact, the new law does not stipulate how much money to give and to whom. We are only talking about changing the mechanism for bringing funds to educational institutions.

In the provisions of 83-FZ, all items of financial costs for budgetary organizations are clearly stated. Money for their activities is received at strictly defined times through the treasury. The status of budgetary institutions now includes orphanages, special schools, schools in colonies, small schools and others.

Thus, you should not react to publications that school education will be paid - there will be no paid school education in Russia! Universal free education is one of the guaranteed norms of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. On the other hand, school education needs to be approached more flexibly, taking into account modern trends.

Every year before studying, rumors begin to spread that the training will be paid. And now parents are worried that from 2019 they will have to pay for the education of their children.

Some argue that only those who have middle school students will need to pay; this reform will not affect younger students. Others are sure that literally everyone will have to pay.

Mothers discuss this issue in their kitchens with their families, on the Internet on forums, and when meeting each other. What actually awaits schoolchildren in ? Will education be paid or is this just another batch of unsubstantiated rumors?

What does paid education lead to?

If we look at history, we can see that paid education was introduced before the Great Patriotic War in 1940. Then high schools and universities were transferred to a paid basis. This policy decision is explained by the following considerations:

• At that time, the state needed ordinary workers more than people with higher education.
• More boys were sent to military schools, which remained free.
• The class system in Soviet society was strengthened, everyone remained in his place. The children of collective farmers worked on the land, and those who had higher education received prestigious professions.

The country especially needed the military; the government understood that war was coming.

Another innovation in education was separate education for boys and girls. However, this reform was canceled the next year after Stalin's death, in 1954.

If you study this excerpt from Soviet history, you can understand that such a reform in education did not lead to anything good. It is difficult to understand why it is necessary to introduce payment for education now.

To be or not to be an education reform?

Free education for all children in the country is guaranteed by the most important law - the Constitution of the Russian Federation. To make changes that are impossible at the whim of one person, the consent of the majority of members of the Russian government is required.

The Constitution states that education must be publicly accessible, free and compulsory. Parents and the teaching staff must create all conditions so that the child can receive all the necessary knowledge. You can also enroll in universities, technical schools, and vocational schools for free on a competitive basis.

Based on the above, we can confidently say that every student has the right to free education approved by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and the fact that schools will switch to a fully paid basis is just rumors.

Paid education for secondary school

But, despite the guaranteed free education, the law on payment for education has been in effect for several years now and quite successfully. It states that schools should gradually become self-sustaining.

This does not mean that parents will have to pay entirely for their child's education. The point is that the main items remain free. Payment will be charged for additional classes, electives, clubs, etc.

Everyone knows that nowadays it has become very difficult to study at school. Even jokes began to be told about the terrible, one might say, martyr-like solutions to homework. To get a decent education, students have to stay for after-school and extra classes. These are the lessons that will need to be paid for in addition to the school curriculum.

The parents themselves will decide whether to attend them or not. But according to experts, such additional classes are and will be in great demand. After all, every parent wants their children to gain deep knowledge, successfully pass the Unified State Exam and ultimately become highly educated people.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to obtain such knowledge without additional electives and tutors. In addition, schools are allowed to introduce diverse clubs and professional subjects so that children from a very early age can decide what they want to do, what they want to become, what profession to choose in the future, and gain skills. Some of these circles are held free of charge, but for others you have to pay.

Regarding professional subjects, there is an opinion that they are not needed at school, since at such an early age the child cannot yet decide what profession he would like to choose in the future.

But still, additional knowledge will not hurt anyone. Thanks to lessons and clubs that are not part of the school curriculum, students are given the opportunity to broaden their horizons. For example, English is studied at school, but the child wants to learn French; for this, parents can pay for additional French lessons.

Who benefits from paid training?

Of course, it will be difficult for ordinary citizens of the Russian Federation to pay for their children’s education. Especially if there are several schoolchildren in the family. But there are cases when a child cannot study in a group and finds it difficult to concentrate on general lessons.

Then it is profitable for parents who care that their child has a good education to pay a tutor for additional lessons. They often hire a teacher or send a child to additional classes in preparation for the Unified State Exam, since in regular lessons children do not have time to master all the necessary knowledge.

There is also a negative side to this issue; some teachers, wanting to have additional income, perform their duties poorly and do not properly teach students. Such cases, of course, are rare and are immediately suppressed by management.

Video news

The article was written specifically for the website “2019 Year of the Pig”: https://site/