The teachers of Smolensk region assessed the performance of the education system in 2015

In Smolensk there was a meeting of the Board of the Regional Education, Science and Youth Department, where the performance of the sector in 2015 was discussed, and the tasks of its development for the current year were set. The Governor Alexey Ostrovskiy took part in the meeting. The event was held in the Smolensk Institute of Education Development.

Before the start of the meeting, the Head of the region visited the Museum of the History of Education in Smolensk region, created at the Institute. The museum exhibition includes 16 exposition sections and presents the main stages of development of the region's education, from the tenth century to the present. The museum has unique documents and objects, as well as their replicas made by professional artists, teachers, and students.

In his opening speech at the Board Meeting Alexey Ostrovskiy pointed out that, in his opinion, the main element of the educational process is the function of character building: "You can train almost any child, but to bring this child to be a good man and citizen, to my mind, is the main goal, which should be the main objective of the school and the teacher".

It is should be stressed that despite the difficult situation in the economy of the country and the region all the fundamental payments were made in the education sector last year. For example, the amount of funds allocated to perform public obligations and liabilities relating to the provision of state guarantees for orphans and children left without parental care amounted to 605 million rubles in 2014, and in 2015 it was 637 million rubles. Compared with 2014, the amount of funds allocated to provide the educational organizations with buses to transport students, to buy the textbooks was increased 1.7 times. There was an increase in the number of private pre-school educational institutions and organizations of general education receiving subsidies, which also required an increase in funding from the regional budget.

The meeting discussed other positive examples of the work of the education system. Thus, by January 1 of this year the queue to get a place in the kindergarten for children aged from three to seven has been completely eliminated in Smolensk region. Nevertheless, there is still a problem of providing places in the preschool institutions for the kids between one and a half to three years old. By the way, now the number of young Smolensk residents receiving pre-school education, is growing steadily, and, as of January 1 of this year, it was 40,924 people, or 69.56% of the number of children aged one to seven - this figure is one of the best in the Central Federal District.

As for the school education, the meeting stressed that special attention is paid to the quality of education of Smolensk children, which remains high. For example, last December in Russian schools for the first time there was a trial of All-Russian testing on the Russian language and mathematics in the fourth grades. As a result, the Smolensk fourth graders demonstrated a high level of knowledge: the regional indicators exceeded the national ones by 4.4% and 3.3% in theses subjects respectively. Good results were shown by the Smolensk seniors at their final exams: the regional average test score at the Unified National Exam in 2015 exceeded the same score for Russia in the Russian language, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Geography. In addition, according to Alexey Ostrovskiy, the work of organizing and conducting the Unified National Exams in the region received a very high assessment.

Also, creating the conditions for physical culture and sports in the educational institutions has continued. The federal grant of 23.26 million rubles received by Smolensk region, as well as the funds from the regional budget, allowed to repair 13 sports gyms, to install three outdoor sports grounds, to open 31 sports clubs last year. As a result there was a 18.6% increase in the proportion of students engaged in physical culture and sports in their free time.

The conditions for the disabled children and children with disabilities to study in schools are being created. In 2015, in the framework of the "Accessible environment" program, more than 10 million rubles were allocated from the regional budget, and 25.6 million rubles were attracted from the federal budget to reconstruct 26 general educational institutions and to purchase special equipment.  

Another major tasks in the sphere of school education in the near future, in addition to increasing its availability, is to solve the problem of overcrowding in a number of city schools and classes in Smolensk region at the expense of the program "Promotion of creating new places in general educational organizations in the regions of the Russian Federation (based on the estimated needs)" for 2016-2025.

In the sphere of vocational education there have also been some achievements. Last year, Smolensk region for the first time took part in the «WorldskillsRussia» movement, and on March 13 to 18 of this year, the first regional championship of this movement will be held in Smolensk region, which will include 12 sectors.