#11 - JRL 7302
BBC Monitoring
Russian minister reports on school construction,
curriculum changes
Source: Radio Mayak, Moscow, in Russian 1100 gmt 26 Aug 03
[Presenter] Almost 300 newly-built schools will be opened in Russia on 1 September, 22 of them in Chechnya, Russian Education Minister Vladimir Filippov said. He opened an all-Russia Internet conference on the problems of public education.
More than 40 million Russians are school or college students, Filippov said. An experiment on the introduction of new programmes will continue in many secondary schools in the coming school year, he said.
[Filippov] Most regions have completed the return to four-year primary education instead of the three-year education introduced in mid-1980s. The new educational standards won't be introduced automatically throughout the country in the next school year. A total of 1,734 schools will be testing certain elements of them. Children will go to school at six-years-old, they will begin to study a foreign language in the second grade and will master the basics of computer literacy in primary school. We will teach economics and law in secondary schools, so that every boy and girl has the practical knowledge necessary for everyday life after finishing the 9th grade. The number of lessons of physical culture will be increased. Early specialization will be introduced in senior grades.
We hope that the new educational standards will be finally approved in 2003, so that a national contest for new textbooks and manuals could be held in 2004. Teachers have to be re-trained in 2004-05.
[Presenter] The technical level of the public education system will also be upgraded. The minister said that up to 3,000 schools in remote areas would be provided with satellite dishes in September.
Top • NextAug. 27, 2003: #7302 • #7303 • JRL Home
- Back to the Top -