Advancement of Russian Education and Society During the Putin Era

In no way is this meant to be an exhaustive enquiry into the title's topics for that would take several hundred pages bound by book covers. What this will do is continue my investigation and illumination of current topical aspects that recently arose. For example, I recently noted Putin's important lesson meted out to young adults prior to their participation in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and the subsequent discussion between all participants that was very illuminating. Prior to that, I linked to Putin's involvement with an organization he personally founded, the Znanie (Knowledge)Society, and constructed an article around it two months ago. Both of them are on my Wall as are a few earlier efforts. All bolded emphasis is mine.

Today, Putin's meeting with the Government deeply discussed higher education in Russia, and the day before Putin held a meeting with the winners of the contest "Leaders of Russia", both of which serve to further illuminate Russia's society and its extensive and excellent education system. What's particularly revealed in the government meeting is the fact that Russia remains a developing nation that's still in the process of overcoming its Economic Rape by Neoliberal Parasites during the 1990s, a shown by this passage:

Last year, on your initiative, we launched a programme to overhaul schools, which is necessary and absolutely unprecedented in scale. Today, 2200 schools are being repaired, 1650 of them at the expense of federal funds. As you instructed, the public, parents are involved at all stages: from the development of a design project to the acceptance of finished buildings. And of course, work is going on especially intensively now, so that on September 1, children begin to study in comfortable conditions.

Another issue is related to the development of gas infrastructure to provide heat to schools and kindergartens. In some cases, where schools are undergoing major repairs, we plan to synchronise them with the social gasification programme.

That led to this interaction initiated by Putin:

Sergey Sergeyevich mentioned the gasification of schools. Unfortunately, a large number of schools in our country have not yet been gasified. I looked at the references – to be honest, I was surprised: a lot. Mr Sobyanin spoke about social gasification, which means free of charge.

Alexander Valentinovich, what opportunities do we have in this regard? Have we worked on this in any way, is it put somewhere?

A.Novak: Mr President, thank you very much.

I would like to say a few words about the figures for gas supply to schools and pre-school institutions.

At the end of last year, Gazprom Mezhregiongaz supplied gas to 7636 schools in 62 regions of the Russian Federation and to 4590 kindergartens. I want to emphasize that these are the schools and kindergartens to which gas is directly supplied under contracts. These figures, of course, do not take into account schools and kindergartens, which are located in cities and are supplied centrally, due to district heating. Although, of course, boilers, large power plants use gas to generate heat supplied to residential buildings and schools, so the figure may not be so large relative to gasification. These are mainly rural schools and kindergartens.

As for the proposal presented, I think it is certainly good. We will work on it with Gazprom and the Ministry of Education, since we have already accumulated extensive experience in implementing your instruction on social additional gasification – to bring plots to residential buildings in settlements where gas is already available for free. where today there is already gas and where it is in demand.

I noted this issue in an article I published last year and its scale and scope. Putin's annoyance at the slow pace of implementation indicates the importance he places on the project since it so directly impacts the lives of Russians.

The report concludes with the aid being provided to the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republic's school systems:

We are actively preparing for the new academic year. Today, interdepartmental acceptance commissions have been created in each region, from July 20 to August 20, they will check the condition of all schools. On special control - issues of safety, security of buildings, as well as the organization of hot meals. I will say that this program is very much in demand. Parents are constantly involved in quality control. We look carefully so that there are no reasons for complaints.

Also, in September, we are introducing a new format – "Talk about the important". We will invite the children to discuss fundamental issues: the role of the family, human qualities, significant milestones of our history, modern processes. These classes should organically complement the main educational process.

Separately, we pay the most serious attention to the support of the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics, their preparation of schools for September 1. We are doing everything to ensure that Donbass schools start working in a single educational space with Russia, so that the educational process is built according to our, domestic, highest quality standards.

We expect that in the new academic year 1120 schools will open in the DPR and LPR. Many of them have already completed the year according to our educational standards, there are 865 of them. Schoolchildren could take the exam, about a thousand schoolchildren took advantage of this.

The rest of the schools, of course, have yet to rebuild and adapt their programmes. To help them, we organized advanced training of teachers and managerial personnel. We expect that 15,000 teachers will pass it by September 1; 5.5 thousand have already successfully completed the training.

Problem with tutorials solved. Almost 3.5 million books will go to the school libraries of Donbass. Children will have high-quality literature, without which deep modern knowledge is simply impossible.

This morning I met with teachers of Kharkiv region in Kupyansk. All of them say that any of our support is now extremely necessary, extremely in demand, needed by teachers, parents, children themselves. In this regard, we are grateful to the governors, rectors of pedagogical universities, who joined the work with high school students, organized university shifts. Today, children from Donbass are actively coming to us, rediscovering Russia, learning what broad, real, publicly accessible opportunities there are.

In conclusion , about children's rest. The summer wellness campaign is proceeding normally, according to plan. In total, more than 38 thousand organizations are involved. In terms of the number of children who are resting in health facilities this year – about six million people – we have already reached the previous, pre-Covid, level. And the key role here was played by your decision, Mr President, to support the "children's cashback".

On behalf of all our teachers and colleagues, I would also like to thank you for your decision to declare next year the Year of the Teacher and Mentor. This is a significant event for the educational community, for everyone who is involved in the upbringing and education of children. We have already started preparations, and we will soon present an action plan.

I often observe that Putin is very aware of his Tsar-like role as Patriarch when it comes to children, a role IMO he'd play regardless Russia's demographic issues, although that clearly impacts his decisions. As you see, Russia's overall unitary organization of its education system allows it to support students in ways the Outlaw US Empire can't because the states are in charge of their own educational systems, and in some instances won't because of Neoliberal Parasitism--particularly the overly burdensome amount of debt most student's have no choice to incur if they want a successful life that nowadays requires a college degree. Now the report on higher education which will show the great difference in that regard:

The country's higher education system fully completes the next academic year. And at the same time, on June 20, a new admission campaign to universities was launched. For most school graduates, it will end in the first half of August, when universities will issue enrollment orders.

I want to dwell on three fundamental points.

The first is budget places. Mr President, on your instructions this year we have significantly increased the number of state-funded places in universities by 38,000, of which the absolute majority were sent to the regions of the Russian Federation. Thus, the total number of places to study at the expense of the federal budget this year is 580,412, while 75 percent of the total number of state-funded places was sent to the regions. Thus, as you instructed us, we are trying to provide wide free access to higher education throughout the country.

Separately, I would like to note that this year almost 64.5 percent of this year's school graduates will have the opportunity to enroll in state-funded places. By the way, last year this figure was slightly more than 61 percent.

The leading regions in terms of the growth of budget places were the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, the Murmansk Region, the Pskov Region, the Republic of Buryatia, the Republic of Adygea, the Bryansk Region and Sevastopol. And the leaders among the groups of specialties for the growth of budget places were such as informatics and computer engineering, management in technical systems, construction engineering and technology, mathematics and mechanics, agriculture, forestry and fisheries.

This year, additional budget places for master's degrees were allocated, they were also sent to leading universities in priority areas of training, and 75 percent were also distributed to the regions. As priorities, areas that are related to our scientific and technological sovereignty, advanced development of industry, agriculture, natural and mathematical sciences were identified. In addition, responding to the urgent need for specialists in the humanities, we additionally allocated places in Oriental studies and history.

Separately, I would like to note that this year we have significantly increased the number of state-funded places in postgraduate studies – by a thousand places compared to last year. In itself, this may not mean anything, and compared to last year it is almost 30 percent [growth]. And first of all, the volume of admission to engineering and technical sciences, as well as mathematical and natural sciences, has increased.

In this regard, I would like to note the positive results of our work back in 2020 to improve the organisation of the activities of dissertation councils. In 2021, we managed to reverse the negative trend of falling in the number of dissertation defenses of candidates and doctors of science. For the first time since 2015, the number of defenses in 2021 increased and amounted to 9345, which exceeds the 2020 figure by 24 percent - in 2020 there were 7531. Accordingly, the demand for postgraduate studies has also grown, and we, in turn, have added [places]. That seems to us to be extremely important.

Thank you for your trust, because thanks to you, the coming decade has been declared the Decade of Science and Technology by the relevant decree, and one of the key goals is to attract young people to research and development.

The second is a fundamentally important area. Currently, universities are actively conducting an admission campaign, accepting applications from applicants, and conducting entrance tests. We have preserved for school graduates both the traditional ways of submitting documents, that is, personal presence, the ability to send by mail, and new ways that we actively tested during the Covid period – remote, remote. That is, school graduates can send an application either through the electronic systems of universities, or through the super service "Enter the university online", integrated with a single portal of public services.

We see significant activity here, the interest in higher education is quite obvious. Traditional leading directions are most popular this year. These are specialties and areas [of training] in the field of engineering, information technology, medicine and pedagogy. On July 25, the acceptance of applications will end, and the enrollment stage will begin.

And the third. Mr President, in accordance with your executive order, appropriate changes have been made to the admission procedures and rules, in particular, a special quota of ten percent of all state-funded places has been allocated for the admission of children of participants in a special military operation to universities. And of course, as established by your executive order, they are received in a simplified manner on the basis of internal tests in one case, and without entrance tests at all in the other.

I also want to note the unique opportunities created for admission to the first year for applicants from the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics and from Ukraine. For them, a simplified procedure for admission to Russian universities without the results of the Unified State Exam has been created. At the same time, they do not participate in the general competition for state-funded places, but enter within the quota of the Government. And this quota this year has been increased from 18 to 23 thousand places, so the admission of school graduates from the people's republics and Ukraine does not affect the competitive situation for Russian citizens.

At the same time, in addition to such unprecedented opportunities, we have gone further this year, and this year school graduates from the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics have the opportunity to enter not only universities in their regions, but also simultaneously with admission to their universities to be enrolled in programs in Russian partner universities. Therefore, for each of the universities of the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics, a partner has been identified from among Russian universities - these are strong, established universities that help in organizing the educational process, in solving personnel, educational, methodological and educational tasks.

The work is organised, we accept teachers, organise further training, help with textbooks and, most importantly, launch a double diploma programme so that those who enter the territories of the people's republics, the best of them, have the opportunity to simultaneously receive diplomas from leading Russian universities.

Mr President, the university admission campaign ensures both the growing availability of higher education at the expense of the federal budget and takes into account the characteristics of certain groups of applicants. At the same time, the reception is aimed at providing the country and its regions with highly professional, necessary personnel, and talented young people with opportunities for development and self-realization.

Given the great emphasis Putin has placed on high tech, hard sciences and engineering, that the coming decade is dedicated to those pursuits should come as no surprise. Overall, Russia's national security as Putin has stated many times begins with the Russian People's wellbeing along with the proper education, utilization and ongoing lifelong development of Russia's Human Capital. This approach mirrors China's and other enlightened nations but is completely opposed by Davos's WEF and nations controlled by Neoliberal Parasites who see no use for what are called “useless people.” Only “the Golden Billion” matter to that tiny minority and is actually where the ideological battle arises from.

And now on to Putin's meeting with the winners of the Leaders of Russia contest which the Kremlin tells us:

"Leaders of Russia" is the flagship project of the presidential platform "Russia is a country of opportunities", aimed at identifying, developing and supporting promising leaders. Its participants are given the opportunity to receive an educational grant, work with a mentor from among the leaders of business and public administration, get into the personnel management reserve of the country.

In 2021-2022, the competition, held since 2017, was held for the fourth time and for the first time was divided into eight tracks: "Business and Industry", "Public Administration", "Science", "Healthcare", "Culture", "Information Technology", "Students" and "International". According to its results, 106 people became winners - representatives of 32 Russian regions and three foreign countries.

This is clearly an effort to create a meritocratic system within Russia aimed at ensuring the continuation and improvement of governance, which works well with all the other Russian contests and social organizations. In this competition, many of the participants are already established in life and the contest seems geared to discover those best qualified for being provided post-graduate leadership training in both government and business.

I must admit to being very tempted to copy/paste the conversational transcript between Putin and the various winners, for we learn a lot about Putin, Russia and Russians. One of the commonalities of the great majority of winners is their association with education as teachers regardless of their individual field of expertise. IMO, that makes them open to having mentors assigned to them as a reward for winning. And these mentors are very important people, like the CEOs of Rosatom and Gazprom. Putin also benefits from these interactions by learning additional information and the types of problems encountered he was previously unaware of. Then there's the joy of human interaction that everyone clearly enjoys once overcoming any intimidation on talking with President Putin.

After all the presentations were finished, Putin expressed his deep thanks to all and provided these words of wisdom:

For my part, I have already said and I want to repeat, I want to thank you for the fact that you are working so actively each in your own direction, in your own area, striving to reach new heights, striving for results.

You know, life is fleeting. It seems to us that it is infinite, but in fact it is not. It is very important to be able to concentrate all your skills, all your intellectual capabilities in order to enjoy this life. And the most important pleasure is in self-realization, and self-realization is impossible without serving people, without serving the Fatherland, without serving the Motherland. This ministry can be very different. Someone was a submariner, someone builds ships, someone is engaged in culture. If everyone in his own area achieves success, striving for self-realization, this will make up the success of the country as a whole. I sincerely wish you these successes.

At the top of the link to this transcript is the video of the affair which conveys the great pleasure Putin gets from these interactions with his jovial informality which is quite different from his “official” persona, and of course you get to see who these future leaders of Russia are.