“Reducing the actual time spent on homework” seeks to create a “balanced and beneficial” educational load for the student, explains the Kremlin on the website.
Putin also demands a reduction in the number of tests and exams that aim to assess students’ knowledge in a specific subject throughout the school year, claiming that in the family year, it is much more important to promote “interdisciplinary relationships” and improve coherence between educational programs and materials included in final exams.
Traditionally, Russian students have to spend several hours doing homework, a burden that has been criticized by parents and experts alike.
In recent years, Putin has insisted on the need to intensify children’s patriotic education, an area in which the State has multiplied the budget several times since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. To this end, patriotic training classes and flag-raising ceremonies, in addition to the creation of the director’s advisor, seen by his critics as a political commissar.
The authorities have also invested in and financed the founding of youth groups and new “initial military preparation” courses were announced with a total of 140 hours for students aged between 17 and 18.
Furthermore, the History textbooks for the last two years of secondary education were rewritten, removing almost all criticism of the Soviet dictator Stalin and introducing a special chapter on the current military campaign in Ukraine.
Some teachers’ organizations urged students’ parents to boycott what they openly called the Kremlin’s “ideological project”, as it argues that the main ideal of a Russian is to serve the motherland, “often with weapons in their hands”.
