Press release, 16.02.2016
Today the State Duma Committee for Science and Education has considered the draft of the amendments to the Federal Law on Education submitted by Emilia Slabunova, YABLOKO Chairperson and Deputy Chair of the Committee for Education, Culture, Sports and Matters Concerning Young Persons of the Karelian Legislative Assembly.

“At the moment the federal authorities approve the educational standards, while the regions must find the means to ensure the state guarantees. But the extent of the guarantees itself is not defined by lаw.

For this reason the regions fund education residually, Slabunova marked. The officials divide the available money by the number of children in the region and, as a result, receive the financial ratio. In some regions this ratio allows to provide the educational level which meets the state standards without any problems, while in other regions the educational level is provided at the expense of the teachers’ effort.

At the same time, all the education employees, school principals and teachers, bear the same responsibility – they must achieve the results required by the state educational standards,” YABLOKO Chair said.

The amendments to the law developed by Emilia Slabunova propose to set the formulas of minimum spending ratio per one student per year. If the amendment is adopted, financing below the set ratio will not become possible.

“This will guarantee the access to education according to the state educational standard for every child from all the regions despite their financial situation,” Slabunova stressed.

Another problem which can be solved by Slabunova’s amendments is the methodological support of education.

“There is such a situation in a large number of the regions that the methodological services were eliminated by reason of the spending optimisation. As a result, a teacher must become a guidance counselor and develop all the documents from working programmes to didactic and control materials, technological lesson cards and so on,” YABLOKO Chair explained.

Emilia Slabunova proposes to pass the issues of the methodological support of educational activity to the supervision of a federal operator. A specialised educational institution or an institution of the Russian Academy of Education can become the supervisor by means of open competition.

The State Duma Committee members disapproved of the amendments considering them unnecessary. They proposed the State Duma that the draft should be rejected. The Council of the State Duma will be the next to consider the amendments.