OREANDA-NEWS. May 31, 2011. “We have accumulated unique experience and streamlined the key mechanisms for developing the Russian school. Most importantly, we have attracted public attention and focused the efforts of the authorities at all levels on the problems of schools and education in general, which is very important as it is.”

Vladimir Putin’s address: Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate you on the end of this academic year and to thank you for your hard work, which is very important for the country. Students will now sit at examinations and then will be dispersed for their summer holiday, but for teachers this is a time to consider their performance and develop new objectives.

The Russian Pedagogical Assembly, one of the largest public organisations in the sphere of education, unites teachers and parents’ committees. I would describe this congress as an enlarged teachers’ council meeting, which should outline a joint action programme for improving the Russian education system.

You have a very important and noble mission – to teach children. I know that I am not saying anything new, but I still want to say it once more: You not only provide knowledge but, acting in line with Russian educational traditions, also guidance to our young people, largely determining their world view, values and stand in life. In fact, you give them the foundation for developing their potential in life. The country’s development for decades ahead, the nation’s prospects and competitiveness depend on you, on the quality and substance of your work.

“The school is the future of Russia,” Sergei Trubetskoy, a Russian philosopher and rector of Moscow State University, said at the beginning of the past century. These words are a concise formula for all time, for all historical and political ages.

When defining the priorities of national development in the early 2000s, we picked out education as one of the key areas and decided to launch a corresponding national project. While carrying this project out, the government invested an additional 100 billion roubles into upgrading general education. We primarily invested into the development and support of schools and innovation programmes and created a system of incentives for the best supervising instructors, teachers, talented young people and students. In just five years, the consolidated budget of the education system increased not by a few percentage points but it doubled to exceed two trillion roubles this year. The government will spend a huge sum of two trillion roubles on education this year.

We have carried out comprehensive programmes for modernising education in 31 regions. In the process, we have accumulated unique experience and streamlined the key mechanisms for developing the Russian school. Most importantly, we have attracted public attention and focused the efforts of the authorities at all levels on the problems of schools and education in general, which is very important as it is.

And one more point. Here are some revealing statistics. During the implementation of the national project Education the number of juvenile crimes in Russia has decreased by 40% and the number of children expelled from schools for poor progress has been 3.5 times lower. Credit for this largely goes to you, to modernised schools.

Now we must look ahead, relying on the foundation that has already been created and upgrade the general educational standards in the country. We must make quality, modern education accessible to all children regardless of their family's social status, their place of birth or residence. The government must ensure an equal start to all of its young citizens.

This fully applies to children with disabilities. Our primary task is to mainstream them – enable them to study in common educational establishments and not to feel isolated from society beginning in their early years. All children should study and grow up together regardless of their physical health. Communication with their peers will help them get on their feet; this should be the norm and we must start this work at school. Ultimately, a society's attitude to its disabled people is a measure of that society's civility in any country.

By 2016, the number of schools with this barrier-free environment must be increased by more than eight times – from 1,200 today to 10,000, and this work must be continued in the future. We must also actively introduce distance learning for children with disabilities because that may open up opportunities for self-fulfillment. Incidentally, today the share of mainstream schools is a mere 2.5% in Russia. The number of children receiving education at home out of the total number of children with disabilities that require this form of education is 53%. At least, this is a more or less decent figure.

It goes without saying that we need to search for talents and develop them. We have many talented children in every region – in cities and villages and the remotest parts of our homeland. We must not miss or lose a single one of them. This year we'll begin establishing centres for the support of gifted children and distance learning programmes at our leading institutions of higher education, including national research universities. The efforts to encourage gifted children will produce results if carried out seriously at the regional and local levels.

I'd like to say a few words about the Belgorod Region by way of example. They have formed a whole system of search and support for gifted children. At this year's national academic competition of students, the Belgorod Region took first place in the team contest. In other words, more than half of all members of the regional team were among the victors and prize winners, leaving St Petersburg and Moscow behind. This is the way to go!

I'd like to emphasise once again that the education system must carry out in full the function of a social lift, opening doors to the economy, politics, culture and other fields of human endeavour for talented and ambitious young people. Only the influx of fresh blood will enable us to ensure the dynamic development of this country.

Now I'd like to say a few words about the Unified State Exam (USE). Of course, this system has room for improvement. First of all, we must enhance public control over how it is conducted. Needless to say, USE procedures are not completely immune to all sorts of abuses.