Minister of Education of Tatarstan — on vaccination of teachers against COVID-19: “There will be no coercion!”

Chess zones — in every school

The minister began the meeting with journalists by briefly summarising the results of the year and discussing plans for the future. Despite the difficulties in connection with the coronavirus pandemic, the implementation of the Education national project continued in Tatarstan. More than 80 billion rubles were spent for this purpose. Two schools were built in Kazan: a polylingual school on Bondarenko Street and a general education school on Zhiganova Street, 42 rural schools became the centres of digital and humanitarian profiles Point of Growth and received appropriate equipment, including chess zones. According to the minister, 114 more schools will be equipped with such zones in 2021, and in the future they will appear in all educational institutions of the republic.

Under other programmes of the national project, six gyms have been renovated, Kvantorium children's park has opened in Naberezhnye Chelny, the educational centre Sirius opens its doors on 25 December, for the equipment of which more than 336 million rubles was spent. Children from all over the country will come to it not only to prepare for the olympiads, but also to participate in various educational, cultural and sports events.

Within the framework of the project “Success of every child”, the Scientific Collaboration House will be opened in Yelabuga on the basis of the local branch of the Kazan Federal University (KFU), where students will have the opportunity to study science. Seventy-eight educational institutions of the republic became participants of the project “Digital Educational Environment”, the Centre of Digital Education was created on the basis of the Almetyevsk Polytechnic Technical School.

Also, for the first time in the republic, a centre for continuous professional growth of teachers and a centre for assessing the competencies of pedagogical managers are being opened in Kazan to improve the skills of teachers. The minister stressed that both centres will give an independent assessment of the professional skills of teachers, but no one will force them to pass the “unified state exam for teachers” without fail.

Vaccination is a voluntary matter

The minister of education of Tatarstan promised not to force teachers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the vaccination in the republic will be voluntary for them.

“There will be no coercion on the part of the ministry of education, everything is in the declarative order. In order to get vaccinated, teachers take a huge number of tests, and there are different factors. If they pass all these stages and get the green light from the doctors, then they can safely do vaccination," Ilsur Khadiullin explained.

According to him, the vaccination campaign of teachers has already begun in the republic.

The final essay postponed to May

In Tatarstan, the state exams will not be cancelled this year.

“We very much hope that the situation will change now, and we will start taking the unified state exam in our main terms from May 24. This is for regions that have switched to a distance learning format, the academic year will be extended. But for us, there is no such threat. Our programme is going according to plan. We hope that we will take the state exams on time," the minister said, answering the question of Realnoe Vremya.

However, changes related to the pandemic still await eleventh-graders. According to the minister, the writing of the final essay on the Russian language in the 11th grades has been postponed from December to May 5. There are also reserve days — May 11, 18, 19. And the interview in the Russian language for 9th grade students will be held in two formats: remote (for those who have switched to distance learning) and in the usual, full-time, but will be limited to 15 minutes.

Last academic year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Basic State Exam was cancelled, and the state final certification in the 11th grades was held as an entrance exam to a higher educational institution.

1 billion rubles — for modernisation of canteens

In Tatarstan, since the beginning of the school year, 209,000 primary school students receive free hot meals. 860 million rubles have been allocated for this, 58% of them are paid by the budget of the Russian Federation and 42% — by the Treasury of the Republic. Khadiullin stressed that the regions had the opportunity to delay the implementation of the proposal announced by President Putin until 2023, but in Tatarstan, they did not.

The minister noted that the quality of food has questions from parents, the public, the children themselves, and he self-critically admitted that “the problem has not been completely solved”. But the republic has allocated 1 billion rubles for the modernisation of school food units. “There are no such programmes anywhere!” Khadiullin boasted. He added that in Tatarstan, since 2012, a programme of major repairs of educational institutions has been implemented, which was not curtailed even during the rampant coronavirus, according to which school canteens are also brought into modern form.

Up to 8k rubles — per class

This year, teachers have begun to receive additional payments for classroom management. 550 rubles is the basic rate, plus 80 rubles — for each child and another 5,000 — the federal payment itself. In total, a teacher can “have” up to 8,000 rubles in addition to earnings per month.

The minister stressed that he does not agree with the opinion that class teachers do not work well. It's just that when there are up to 40 people in the class, it's a big burden on the teacher. According to Khadiullin, a mentoring school can help young cadres. Classroom teachers have their own chat, where they discuss problems, and there experienced teachers post tips to novice classroom teachers.

Problem of second shift

At the moment, more than 50,000 children or 11% of the total number of schoolchildren in the republic study in the second shift. There is no third shift in Tatarstan educational institutions. The minister admitted that the problem cannot be solved in one year.

We can solve the problem with the second shift only with the introduction of new schools. This year, seven schools and two outbuildings have been commissioned in Kazan, Chistopol, Yelabuga, Almetyevsk, and Pestretsy. However, the construction of educational institutions is provided in areas with new intensive development. For example, one school is already ready to open in Salavat Kupere, and the second one will be built in 2021.

Also, next year it is planned to build 13 kindergartens for almost 3,000 places.

Distant learning is bad

The minister admitted that distant learning has had a bad impact on the quality of education. “It was a big mistake on our part," he said. This year, due to the abolition of the unified state exam in the republic, there was an unprecedented number of graduates-medalists. But at the state examinations in universities, some of them did not score even 70 points in specialised subjects.

And this still does not take into account the results of all-Russian verification works (VPR), which were written by students of the 4th, 5th, 8th and 10th grades this autumn. “We have not yet received the results from Moscow, but we are sure that there are difficulties in writing the VKM," Khadiullin said.

The only consolation is that this year there are few schools in Tatarstan where students' test papers were biased.

Algarysh is stalling

The ministry of education recognised the problems with the training of personnel in Russian and foreign universities and scientific organizations under the Algarysh programme. Many people, having improved their skills, either do not return to the republic, or cannot find a job.

The minister assured that he monitors the presence of students and postgraduates, and noted that difficulties arise, among other things, because some interns refuse the offered places.

Columbine — the problem of parents and classroom teachers

When asked how schools are working to prevent “Columbine”, Ilsur Khadiullin said that no one tracks the posts of children in social networks — this should be done by other bodies. Basically, everything falls on the shoulders of class teachers. The annual monitoring of the psychological state of children, which identifies risk groups, should help them.

“The homeroom teacher has a picture. This picture should be known only by one class teacher together with a school psychologist, because this is information for conducting educational work with this child. And of course, parents should know. We are working in this format," the head of the department said.

Well, parents themselves should monitor what their child is doing online. In difficult cases, it is recommended to contact a school psychologist or the republican centre for psychological and pedagogical rehabilitation and correction Rostok, the coordinates of which can be found in all educational institutions.

“But it would be great if parents pay attention to such moments themselves. Because, sometimes, in the same apartment, in the same house, they do not communicate with each other. Everyone is immersed in the virtual world. A child with a phone, a father with an iPhone, a mother in the kitchen with an iPad, and they don't meet each other. We don't need a federal programme to unite them and create an environment for communication.

“Everyone carries their own burden”

Khadiullin, who was appointed to the post less than three months ago, answered the tricky question of whether the minister needs to have a specialised education. “Could you manage the ministry of agriculture?" one of the journalists asked, alluding to the basic agricultural education of the last ministers — Engel Fattakhov and Rafis Burganov.

“Those predecessors who headed the ministry of education were able to preserve the good traditions that were laid down in our ministry and in the education system in general. Everyone works on their own area and carries their own burden… I started working on September 25, I am responsible for the education system and will try to make both teachers and parents happy that they live and work in this system… I understand your question, I would answer that," the minister diplomatically evaded a direct answer.