Meeting to discuss ways to improve Belarus’ education system

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko hosted a government meeting on 21 September to discuss ways to improve the country’s education system.

The meeting gathered more than fifty specialists. These included not only the country’s top officials and heads of government bodies, but also governors, heads of higher education institutions and organizations affiliated with the Education Ministry, chairpersons of the relevant commissions of the House of Representatives and the Council of the Republic, heads of the regional education departments as well as the education committee of the Minsk City Hall, heads of district education departments and employees of educational institutions from different regions of the country.

“We are revisiting education issues today. I wish it to be a rare case for gathering such a number of experts. Education has recently become a frequently-discussed topic both on TV and in the press. Indeed, as it turns out, it is not only me but the whole society that is concerned about the educational process in the country. This is good. We agreed during the previous report of the education minister on the country’s readiness for the new academic year that we would meet in September to take stock of the work done,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

“Everything was too good on paper. In reality everything turned out to be much more prosaic: schools were not ready to receive children, there were unresolved issues related to students’ transportation, nutrition and others. There were a lot of questions at that time. I hope that today I will hear not statistical data, but concrete information about the measures taken by the government to address the identified issues and proposals for further work in this area,” the President emphasized.

“I want you to understand me right. I, as the head of state, have repeatedly said that school is a temple. This is the sacral meaning of education. School should demonstrate an iron order and discipline both in the organization of the educational process and in its infrastructure. School lays the foundation for the future of not just a citizen, but a human being. Schools should be refurbished where necessary, they should be painted, have their broken or old windows and doors replaced, as well as their grounds landscaped. Children should be involved in all the school works. Young people should be educated through labor. Only then they will have the right attitude towards school. Unfortunately, we have abandoned this good Soviet tradition,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

The head of state stressed the need to ensure that students fill all schools across the country. Transportation services should be organized where necessary, especially in Minsk. “We are building modern schools in new residential districts. In the central districts of Minsk, where residents are mainly aging, there are practically no children, and schools stand empty or half-empty there. One of the solutions can be to transport children from the new neighborhoods to these old schools, which are home to memories for thousands of people, and use the saved money for other purposes and needs, including for rising teachers' salaries. We cannot afford excesses in today’s times. We should take a wise approach to addressing the issue,” the President said.

"Today we will also talk about the content of the educational process, or rather, about the textbooks used to teach our children. I am very concerned that there are still questions about their quality. We have to respond to citizens' complaints and figure out what is wrong with our textbooks. I believe that the Education Ministry has been underperforming in this regard for several years now," the head of state said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko noted textbooks are mostly written by educators who have been out of school for years. He believes that this approach is wrong and out of touch with their audience. “They must appeal to the youth. Young people don't have the same knowledge as we do. They have no experience. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on them and prepare textbooks for them. The system of knowledge assessment (exams, etc.) should be tailored to them too," the President emphasized.

"At the pedagogical council on 24 August 2021, I spoke against always changing curricula and plans and endless publication of new textbooks. I suggested returning to the Soviet experience, taking the best textbooks and gradually refining them, improving them rather than printing new and new ones. Because every new team of authors is always trying to be original (you scholars understand this): ‘I want to be different from what it was, and show myself.’ Nobody needs it. The main principle of the work of our state and any processes taking place in our state is to build on what humanity has achieved. We stand, as I say quoting one of great thinkers, on the shoulders of giants. There is no need to jump off these shoulders - we will lose everything that humanity has discovered before us. We must use this for the sake of the future. Therefore, we need to improve and do not hesitate to capitalize on the best things that have been achieved before us," the Belarusian leader said.

Approaches to final exams in secondary schools and to admission to higher education institutions were high on the agenda. According to the President, a lot of sociological surveys have been conducted to find out what all the participants of the university admission process (prospective students, parents, pedagogues) think about the matter and how the education process in secondary schools and higher education institutions should be organized.

Aleksandr Lukashenko said: “Frankly speaking, I’ve accepted the Education Ministry’s proposals on changing the university admission procedure (we’ve been through that this year), provided we will revisit the issue once again. When the commission in charge of overseeing the university admission campaign presents its conclusion, when other oversight agencies speak up, and when pedagogues talk about advantages and possibly shortcomings. I bet heavily on it, this is why I’ve invited such a broad circle of professors and teachers.”

The President continued: “I’d like to hear a principled evaluation of the new university admission system. Has it allowed us to see every prospective student? Has it enabled equal treatment of the prospective students as well as equal conditions and opportunities for getting education in higher education institutions? It is a question of utmost importance.”

Aleksandr Lukashenko also wondered whether specialists and pedagogues have any suggestions for improving the existing procedure in addition to these novelties.

“Here and now we have to determine how secondary schools and higher education institutions are supposed to operate in the future and tackle the key task: enable conditions for professional development and establishment in their own country for young Belarusians. I emphasize: the most talented and promising prospective students have to be in demand here, in the Motherland. It is my iron rule,” the Belarusian leader stated.

Continuing the line of thought, he recalled a recent visit to the National Children’s Technopark: “Once again I made sure that we have truly many smart kids, who love Belarus. We just have to support them, show them the perspective of self-realization and career advancement. To put it plainly, we have to set them on the true course.” If things happen differently and some of the kids deviate from this course, then the blame lies on the adults, who are nearby them, to a significant degree, Aleksandr Lukashenko believes. “We are to blame for all the faults in this regard. We are guilty. The kids are not,” he is convinced. “Or some of us cannot think straight and veer off the road.”

“This is why let’s start by looking at ourselves. But there must be no drastic decisions after our meeting today,” Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed. “All the opinion surveys indicate that school teachers, university professors, and students are tired of our unceasing attempts to improve the education system in a revolutionary manner. It is time to stop doing that.”

According to the head of state, governors need to keep education issues on the radar, since their area of responsibility goes far beyond agriculture.

“The Education Ministry is laying a certain track with new experience and so on. The governors, however, remain somehow in the shadows, but this is your area of responsibility as well. You know it better on the ground. The track is marked at the level of the Education Ministry, the government, and you need to act. It is not the minister who should repair your schools, it is you who should do it. It is not the minister's job to transport children. A decision has been made to allocate buses. Take a look at where these buses are used,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

The President emphasized the importance of a cost-conscious approach to handling these issues. For example, school buses should be used only for school needs, and then they will last for many years. “We have our buses breaking down. I am just mentioning the latest hot topic. You, governors, need to figure out how the vehicles are used. As for the government, they receive proposals and  immediately agree to allocate another 1,000 or 1,500 buses. You need to take good care of money,” the head of state said.

There are still problems with school catering. Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasized that the food should be high-quality, but there is no need to set up restaurants at schools. “Let's sort everything out here,” the President added.

According to the head of state, the situation in education should be monitored with the participation of supervisory bodies. “They should be with you at the finish line [preparation of educational institutions for the new academic year] and advise you on what needs to be done,” he said. “There is no need to put pressure on teachers and university administrators, it will not do any good. But demands [on heads of educational institutions] will be high. If God forbid something happens, directors will be held accountable,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

Chairman of the State Control Committee Vasily Gerasimov and Prosecutor General Andrei Shved reported on the main problematic issues in the education sector.

The head of the State Control Committee, speaking about the process of preparing schools for 1 September, emphasized that there used to be school readiness passports that were signed by different agencies, and not only the Education Ministry. With time, the Education Ministry abandoned this practice.

“As a result, we have what we have: the documents are simply signed, even without visiting the place,” he said. “The State Control Committee together with the Prosecutor General's Office made a proposal to make such documents an interdepartmental act with a definite status, and to define school readiness criteria.”

Another proposal is to simplify the system of financing such works by analogy to what was once done in the housing and utilities sector with the organization of current and capital repairs. “Each district has its own construction organizations. There is no need to look for private companies all over the country to get two doors painted,” Vasily Gerasimov cited a figurative example.

Unsatisfactory condition of stadiums (especially in rural areas), as well as windows and roofs was named among the issues that still remain unresolved countrywide. As for school catering, there are facts of reduced portions, violation of technologies, and unpreparedness of catering facilities.

“As for the university admission system, we believe that the practices with centralized testing and recently-introduced centralized exams have proved efficient. If it was not for the recalculation of scores, we would not have faced any complaints from the society,” Vasily Gerasimov said. In his opinion, the university admission system should be improved. For example, some exams on humanities can be made oral. “In our opinion, it is not advisable to completely break the system,” he emphasized.

The prosecutor general mentioned systemic shortcomings in the education process. He believes that it is necessary to fundamentally change the system of signing school readiness certificates and outline the responsibility of officials who sign them. According to him, there are shortcomings in planning and financing current and capital repairs, in providing catering services. As for the assessment of the quality of textbooks and study aids, Andrei Shved emphasized the attempts to withdraw from fulfilling a specific task of improving the existing textbooks instead of publishing new ones. “We need comprehensible and universally recognized textbooks. For some reason the Education Ministry is moving away from the notion ‘textbooks’. There are only seven of them today, and the rest, more than 200, are study aids,” the prosecutor general cited an example. “People seem to simply make money at developing so-called guide aids, which, from our point of view, are largely out of reach with the secondary school.”