Meeting to discuss state of readiness of education system for new academic year

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko hosted a meeting on 18 August to discuss the state of readiness of the education system for the new academic year.

“As you know, the new academic year is starting soon. Summer holidays are coming to an end. The admission process was held in a new format this year. In line with examination results, our young people were enrolled in Belarusian universities and colleges,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

About 170,000 students of vocational schools, as well as 238,500 students of higher education institutions will start their studies in September.

“The figure is impressive. In fact, today the country has entered the last stage of preparations for the new academic year. Back-to-school fairs are running, educational institutions are receiving certificates of readiness and are getting equipped with vehicles for transporting students, dormitories and sports grounds are being refurbished, financial aid is being provided to large and low-income families. At least that’s how it should be. Today we will see if this is really the case. We want our children to have everything they need for studies and we want them to celebrate the Day of Knowledge in a good mood,” the President stressed.

At the same time, the head of state noted that despite the high readiness of educational institutions for the new academic year, some problems remain unresolved. For example, the State Control Committee reported on problems with transportation of students to educational institutions. Aleksandr Lukashenko asked Education Minister Andrei Ivanets how this issue is being resolved in the regions and in Minsk taking into account the President’s instructions.

“I also want to know how things are with meals and children’s safety in kindergartens and schools. Are respective instructions being fulfilled? I pay special attention to food. This is very important. It is not okay to have a pig farm near every school in order to feed food waste to pigs. This is not ethical to throw away food, although it has become a trend recently. In general, can we say with certainty that every child will be provided with everything necessary for school, especially if this child is raised by a large or low-income family?” asked the Belarusian leader.

Separately, Aleksandr Lukashenko discussed transportation of students to educational institutions. He drew attention to the uneven distribution of students throughout schools in Minsk: schools in the new neighborhoods are overcrowded, while schools located in the city center are severely under-enrolled. “If we transport children from Minsk District to Minsk, we should not bring them to the closest school, but to the school that operates below capacity,” the President said.

The head of state urged to come to grips with this issue and take a balanced approach to school construction taking into account the capacity of other educational institutions, especially in large cities. “It’s better to use this money to pay salaries, rather then waste it on uneven enrollment,” he demanded.

The head of state said that he was briefed on the ongoing university admission campaign, adding that it was proceeding in a constructive manner. Deputy Prime Minister Igor Petrishenko is to present a detailed report on the preliminary results of the admission campaign.

“What went well and what went wrong? Maybe you have already developed a vision of how we will further improve the university admission system? As we agreed, this year we should finally make admission rules straightforward and clear. I want to hear how this year’s new-format admission campaign went for employer-sponsored university applicants. How have employer-sponsored university applicants performed during the admission campaign this year?” the President asked.

At the same time, the President asked the meeting participants to focus primarily on pending issues.

Aleksandr Lukashenko instructed the education system to correct its errors. The President was primarily interested not in general figures, such as the percentage of readiness of schools for the new academic year and other indicators, but in an entire range of issues related to education. That is why the traditional report initially proposed to the head of state transformed into a government conference. The heads of the Prosecutor General's Office and the State Control Committee were invited to present the report of the supervisory bodies.

Aleksandr Lukashenko did not accept the reports of the minister and the deputy prime minister. It does not mean that everything is bad in the country’s education system. On the contrary, systematic work is being carried out in a number of areas, but even isolated shortcomings in the area are unacceptable for the President. Not to mention problematic issues that are systemic in nature.

A meeting chaired by the prime minister is set to take place in a week’s time. The President instructed the supervisory bodies to deliver a detailed report there in order to conduct a detailed review and develop a plan of action on how to promptly eliminate all the shortcomings. A new report to the President will take place in early September.

Among the issues raised by Prosecutor General Andrei Shved were security and safety, including fire safety. Not all educational institutions have put things in order in this matter. There are also complaints about inefficient work on the prevention of road accidents.

“In a number of cases, we have identified unpreparedness or incomplete readiness of schools for the new academic year in terms of road safety within the adjacent territories. In some cases, we found that fire exits were blocked, fire extinguishers and other fire safety equipment were out of order. Children should be in safe conditions,” Andrei Shved stressed. “In addition, we have proposed measures to strengthen the protection of children's rights from violence.”

The Prosecutor General's Office also paid special attention to compliance with the law by minors. There are also many issues to be solved here.

The meeting also took a careful look at the support of orphans, the most vulnerable category of population, that needs to be given more attention, especially since the state has all the resources for this, the Prosecutor’s General Office believes. Today 88% of orphans live in family-type homes, the rest - in boarding schools. The President’s demanded to reach everyone, including in remote areas.

The Prosecutor General's Office proposed to revise the legislation and envisage additional support for this category of students. "For example, support on medical grounds. If a child needs glasses, then the state must provide them, among other things. Because they need to be protected, and only the state can protect them," Andrei Shved emphasized.

Another area of concern is textbooks. Despite many years of attention to this issue and the work carried out by the Education Ministry, problems remain and the direct line gets a flurry of calls from citizens ”regarding simplicity, adequacy of the information. The head of state instructed to once again review all textbooks and come to some uniform standard," the head of the State Control Committee said.

Some complains were examined during the meeting using specific examples, quotes from textbooks. Aleksandr Lukashenko instructed to set up a monitoring group for textbooks under the auspices of the Prosecutor General's Office and the State Control Committee. The group will include scholars, specialists, and philologists.

Vasily Gerasimov, Chairman of the State Control Committee, reported on the negative facts in the work of back-to-school fairs and the cases of some private retailers inflating the prices. Unfortunately, such facts are not isolated. But the situation is being monitored, and the necessary measures are being taken against dishonest retailers.

"We will continue to root out such cases," Vasily Gerasimov said. “Prices have been set. No one has the right to inflate them. The last case we identified was the price inflation of 2.6 times. Naturally, we suppress such facts and slap bans on such retailers. This will be done everywhere."

Among the main critical topics was transportation. "Unfortunately, there are a number of shortcomings. There is progress in this matter. However, all measures have not yet been taken, and we have outlined ways to resolve this issue," Vasily Gerasimov said.

Much attention was devoted to the organization of meals in schools, the facts of theft. Education Minister Andrei Ivanets recalled that a pilot project was recently conducted in Belarus to test new cooking technologies and the principles of organizing school meals. "More than 350 new technological dishes have been developed. The infrastructure of the catering units is being modernized," he added. 

The President welcomed experiments and innovations in this yet demanded to restore basic order, first of all. According to him, this issue should be resolved once and for all and is not revisited again and again.

The President Administration shall supervise the entire process of preparing educational institutions and the education system as a whole for the new school year. It shall exercise strict control with visits to schools and other educational institutions to assess the situation on the ground.