Russian Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov resigned on Friday, August 19. He headed the department for more than four years. According to the presidential decree, Livanov was appointed special presidential representative for trade relations with Ukraine. Olga Vasilyeva, an employee of the presidential administration, has been appointed the new Minister of Education. According to Russian reality, education ministers are among the most unpopular in the country. This sad tradition did not bypass Dmitry Livanov either. lists what initiatives and decisions Russians remember him for.

How we dealt with ineffective universities

Dmitry Livanov said that it is necessary to “cleanse” the Russian higher education system of ineffective universities. The first monitoring of the effectiveness of higher education institutions was carried out in 2012, the year Livanov was appointed minister. In total, according to Rosobranadzor, since 2013, about 800 universities and branches have been deprived of their licenses. Most often, the quality of education cannot be confirmed by non-state educational institutions and branches of state ones.

And it seems like a good idea, but for some unknown reason, the criteria for the effectiveness of universities included not their scientific reputation, but the area of ​​premises per student and the number of foreign graduates.

It’s funny and sad that, based on these criteria, universities such as the Russian State University for the Humanities and Moscow Architectural Institute turned out to be “ineffective.”

How budget places in universities were going to be reduced

Minister Livanov was pursued from the beginning of his term until these days by accusations of trying to cut government-funded places in universities. And all because in his very first interview as minister, he told Rossiyskaya Gazeta that the number of students studying at universities at state expense should be reduced. Since then, Livanov has had to annually refute rumors about budget cuts. It is interesting that since 2013 the number of such places has only increased. However, according to RBC, in the summer of 2016 the Cabinet of Ministers approved documents stating that in 2017–2018 the number of budget places in universities may still decrease. And immediately by more than 100 thousand.

How universities united

Minister Livanov carried out the merger of universities in order to increase their efficiency. According to him, this was required due to the current demographic situation in Russia: universities with a small number of students, in his opinion, can survive only if they merge with larger ones. Many institutions actively protested against this decision. Thus, in 2016, a petition against the merger of RKhTU with MISiS received 20 thousand signatures.

How the Russian Academy of Sciences was reformed

Minister Livanov managed to achieve a hostile attitude even from scientists. Livanov called the Russian Academy of Sciences “unpromising and unviable.” In 2013, he began reforming the academy, as a result of which the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and the Academy of Agricultural Sciences were merged with the Russian Academy of Sciences. Also, as a result of the reform, the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations (FANO) was created, whose functions were charged with managing the property of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 2016, a group of scientists consisting of more than a hundred people addressed the president with an open letter, in which they stated that FANO contributed to the collapse of Russian science and demanded that it be reassigned to the Russian Academy of Sciences.

How plagiarism in dissertations was eradicated

Even in the first year of his work, Dmitry Livanov stated that it was necessary to fight plagiarism and bribery in universities. Already in 2013, the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC) began to fight plagiarism in dissertations. As a result of the work of this commission, several high-ranking officials lost their seats. Among them is Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Education and Science Igor Fedyukin. Also, the deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Education and the head of the department at the Russian Economic University had to leave their posts. G.V. Plekhanov Vladimir Burmatov, director of the Specialized Educational and Scientific Center of Moscow State University Andrey Andriyanov, chief of staff of the Commissioner for Human Rights for the Astrakhan Region Daniar Batrashev and others.

How an Altai university lost its rector

Minister Livanov was also remembered in the Altai Territory. Especially at the Altai Technical University, whose rector he dismissed in May 2016. The official reason was failure to meet deadlines for submitting documents for accreditation. As a result, the university still received accreditation, but not in all areas. 11 directions remained unaccredited.

Because elections are coming soon

Today is a holiday for the guys, the pioneers are rejoicing - and no, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria did not come to visit us, as they say later in this nursery rhyme from the Stalin era. Something much happier happened to us - the students, their parents and their teachers: Putin fired the Minister of Education. Dmitry Livanov, who had turned into an extremely odious figure, was replaced by Olga Vasilyeva, an employee of the presidential administration practically unknown to the general public.

And so that all the numerous “fans” of the ex-Minister of Education would rejoice even more, they dealt with him in the same style in which the Russian tsars dealt with the boyars who fell into disgrace. Of course, Dmitry Livanov was not impaled. But the new position granted to him by Vladimir Putin sounds like an outright mockery. Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for trade and economic relations with Ukraine - against the backdrop of the current “blessed” relations between Moscow and Kyiv, the owner of such a “dust-free job” is not at all to be envied.

What is the reason for such interesting personnel changes? In order to answer this question, it is enough to take a quick glance at the calendar. The decree on the resignation of Dmitry Livanov was signed by the GDP on August 19. And in less than a month - on September 18 - the country is scheduled to hold elections to the State Duma. Naturally, our government is interested in Russian voters approaching this event with the utmost responsibility and voting as they should. And the Kremlin also understands: in order for voters to vote as they should, they need to create as many different incentives as possible. The resignation of Dmitry Livanov is one of these incentives. In the best election traditions, the now former Minister of Education was made into a “ritual victim.”

Of course, voters are not fools either. If they had a choice, they would prefer not “the minister’s head on a platter”, but something more material and tangible - for example, some additional social benefits or other pleasant news of a financial nature. And it is possible that similar “good news” will follow in the few weeks remaining before the elections. But the fact that the authorities began the process of cajoling voters with a demonstrative flogging of the Minister of Education does not surprise me at all. As our dear Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev recently said, “there is no money.” The state does not have the physical ability to pamper citizens with “bread”. Therefore, we have to focus on “spectacles”.

Although the newly appointed Minister of Education Olga VASILYEVA is not known to the general public, a poster with her photo and quote surprisingly turned up on the territory of the Tavrida youth forum. It was there that President Putin arrived after he announced Livanov’s resignation.

But this is all, as they say, the political side of the issue - a side that is of great interest to the Russian political elite, but not to the broad masses. Citizens of the Russian Federation are concerned about something else: will it be possible, with the help of a change of minister, to reverse or at least slow down the process of progressive degradation of the education system that is clearly emerging in our country? Unfortunately, the answer to this question is far from obvious.

I honestly admit: until today, I did not even suspect the existence of Olga Vasilyeva, whom the GDP appointed as the new Minister of Education. But her previous position sounds like deputy head of the Kremlin department for public projects. And in my eyes this is a kind of sign of quality. The head of this department, Pavel Zenkovich, is, despite his non-publicity, one of the most prominent Kremlin officials, a man of action, a figure who is not interested in creating as much unnecessary paperwork as possible, but in actually changing our lives for the better.

Perhaps this assessment of mine is overly subjective and personal. But I am inclined to give Olga Vasilyeva quite a significant amount of credit. However, is it enough to change the Minister of Education to change for the better the state of affairs in this extremely important area of ​​our lives? It seems to me that the change of minister can only be the beginning of the process of getting our education system out of the impasse in which it is currently located. If everything is limited to a change of minister, then things will be bad.

I do not consider myself a great authority in the field of pedagogy. But in order to give our education system a two or one, this, in fact, is not required. Once upon a time, the Soviet education system allowed the USSR to catch up and overtake the United States in the technological race. The modern Russian model of public education has a real chance of throwing our country back into the third world. We found ourselves in a trap created by a combination of incompetence, quite good and even noble ideas and an ill-considered transfer of Western educational standards to our soil. As a result, schools and universities produce “specialists” who are unable to think and do not know the basics, but are brilliant at checking a box.

Based on all this, I want to address our authorities with the most serious petition - not as a journalist, but as a voter: thank you, good gentlemen, for the gift in the form of Livanov’s dismissal. I don’t know about others, but I really appreciated this gift. But remember that the day after the elections, life in the country will not end and the need to improve matters in the field of education will not disappear. I hope that before the 2018 presidential elections the Kremlin will not have a reason to give the population another gift in the form of dismissal of the now new Minister of Education - the current heroine of the day, Olga Vasilyeva.

The post of head of the Ministry of Education went to Olga Vasilyeva, an employee of the presidential administration. Livanov will be the head of state’s special representative for trade and economic relations with Ukraine

Dmitry Livanov. Photo: Dmitry Astakhov/TASS

Dmitry Livanov is leaving his post a month before the elections, a source in the government apparatus told RBC. This information was also confirmed to the publication by a source in the Ministry of Education and Science.

According to the latest data, the information has been confirmed. Livanov will become the president’s special representative for trade and economic relations with Ukraine. According to Interfax, Vladimir Putin agreed with Dmitry Medvedev’s proposal to appoint Olga Vasilyeva, an employee of the presidential administration, to the post of head of the Ministry of Education.

Dmitry Livanov is the most unpopular minister. He has held this post since 2012. According to VTsIOM, its activities are assessed as “two” by the majority of Russians surveyed. Livanov has repeatedly been criticized for the reform of education, the Unified State Exam, the reduction in the number of schools, and under him the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences took place. At the beginning of this year, he was removed from the Supreme Council of United Russia. What are the reasons for his resignation?

Nikolay Petrov Professor at the Higher School of Economics, political scientist“An attempt to throw some extra weight off the balloon and neutralize some of the critical sentiment or make some gesture in favor of public sentiment is a completely logical thing. Since our social sphere is in a difficult situation, then healthcare and education are precisely those structures where discontent is accumulating.”

Pavel Salin, director of the Center for Political Science Research at the Financial University, discusses what is behind Livanov’s resignation:

Director of the Center for Political Science Research, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation“The position has been offered. This is an indicator that he is resigning not because they are dissatisfied with him, but because he has fulfilled his role, fulfilled his mission, his function. They are sacrificing now just before the elections, just as in 2007 they sacrificed Zurabov before the Duma elections, he was also very unpopular, such a lightning rod, and during the Duma campaign he was dismissed in September 2007. Now it’s Livanov’s turn. Everything, in principle, fits into the political media logic, because tomorrow there will be an All-Russian Pedagogical Conference with the participation of Dmitry Medvedev, at which the new minister will be presented to the pedagogical community. Thus, the main complaint against the government, Medvedev and United Russia in the field of educational policy is removed. Here you have a new minister, pin new hopes on him. As for Livanov’s position, of course, taking into account, firstly, his past work experience, and secondly, the complex relations between Russia and Ukraine, this position does not have serious prospects for Livanov. But this is an honorable resignation. They show him and the entire bureaucratic and nomenclature department that he was dismissed for mistakes, moreover, he is kept in the personnel reserve.”

The new Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva is a professor, Doctor of Historical Sciences, author of about 150 scientific works. Born in 1960, in the 1990s she worked at the Center for the History of Religion and Church of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 2002, he has headed the Department of Religious Studies at the Russian Academy of Civil Service. Member of the Council for the preparation of programs for the course “National History” under the Ministry of Education and Science.

The main area of ​​her scientific interests is the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, relations between the state and religion. An interlocutor close to the current leadership of the Ministry of Education and Science told Vedomosti that Vasilyeva’s appointment is “a slap in the direction of modernization ideas.” “This is the appointment of an extreme conservative who advocates the priority of religious education. It’s just a guard,” he said.

In the presidential administration, Olga Vasilyeva held the position of deputy head of the department for public projects. As a promoter of the ideas of conservatism and patriotism, Vasilyeva has repeatedly spoken at closed meetings and seminars for participants of the All-Russian Popular Front, governors, teachers, and Kremlin administration officials, reports The Insider. At one of these seminars for United Russia members, Vasilyeva discussed, in particular, the role of the church in the Russian state and how Joseph Stalin during the war revived pre-Soviet traditions that worked for the unity of the nation.

Education Minister Dmitry Livanov resigns, agreeing with the decision of President Vladimir Putin. He will be replaced by Olga Vasilyeva, who previously worked in the administration of the head of state. The former minister himself will oversee economic relations with Ukraine. Livanov is one of the most criticized ministers in the government. According to surveys, Russians rated his activities at 2.6 points. In addition, deputies have repeatedly advocated for his resignation. Lenta.ru recalled what Minister Livanov was remembered for and thought about what to expect from his successor.

Treatment of wounds

Livanov will be remembered most of all for the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The corresponding bill suddenly appeared at the end of June 2013, becoming an unpleasant surprise for Russian scientists. The main complaint was that the reform was developed without the participation of the RAS employees themselves, and Vladimir Fortov, who was elected president of the academy at the end of May 2013, was not initially allowed to participate in the discussion.

The reform implied the formation of a “big RAS”, which would include the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, as well as the creation of an agency of scientific organizations. The bill on the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences was adopted in the first reading in July 2013. After the intervention of academician Yevgeny Primakov and his meeting with President Vladimir Putin, the head of state promised to take into account the opinion of scientists when preparing the next versions of the bill.

A couple of days later, the law was adopted in the second reading. However, after some time it was rolled back, which, however, did not reduce the degree of discontent among scientists. Even the postponement of consideration of the second and third readings did not reassure the scientific community, giving rise to rallies and speeches, including unauthorized ones.

Most of all, academics were dissatisfied with the clause of the law, according to which institutes were subordinate to the federal executive body - the so-called Federal Agency of Scientific Organizations. Despite active resistance, the law was nevertheless adopted in this version (the second and third readings took place in September 2013).

From now on, FANO managed the Academy of Sciences and managed its property. Soon the head of the agency was appointed - financier Mikhail Kotyukov. The RAS was given the responsibility of examination. Nevertheless, a one-year moratorium was imposed on transactions with the academy’s property, which was subsequently extended several times.

Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov / Kommersant

The reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences has not been completed to this day. Many advisory bodies have been created (for example, the NCC), and Russian scientists have drowned in the abyss of document circulation. Meanwhile, FANO continues to measure the performance of subordinate institutes, resolve property disputes and unite scientific institutions into enlarged structures. And also to restore INION, which burned down in January 2015.

Not competitors

The “5-100” project to increase the competitiveness of Russian universities was not successful either. In 2013, 15 universities were selected, which were allocated 42 billion rubles (later another 2.5 billion were added) to increase competitiveness and get into the top 100 best universities according to a number of educational rankings. In 2015, six more universities were added to the program, and the government decided to allocate 14.5 billion rubles annually for the project.

In November 2015, the first results of “5-100” were summed up: Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets announced the serious successes of Russian universities and the conquest of high positions in rankings. However, in January 2016, the program was criticized by the Accounts Chamber: they reported that none of the universities that received the money were able to reach the top hundred in the ranking of world universities.

In particular, it turned out that in 2014 some universities received more than promised from the Ministry of Education and Science, while others received less. Universities also suffered - some either misused the allocated funds or did not use them at all. The Ministry of Education and Science did not agree with the claims, and the project continued.

Dissergate

The name of Dmitry Livanov will also be associated with a scandal-filled campaign to combat plagiarism in dissertations. His deputy Igor Fedyukin helped him in this. At the beginning of 2013, a commission headed by Fedyukin, during the inspection of doctoral and master's theses in history defended at the Moscow Pedagogical State University, revealed numerous violations. At the same time, the free online community Dissernet was actively working in this direction. As a result of the investigation, 11 people were stripped of their academic degrees.

The wave of combating plagiarism was growing. Accusations of incorrect borrowing were brought against many public figures and politicians. As a result, the head of the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC), Felix Shamkhalov, left his post. The wave of indignation on the part of those accused of plagiarism grew, and already in May 2013, Fedyukin resigned. The work of his commission actually stopped, and accusations of plagiarism fell on people from Livanov’s circle at MISiS.

Save and save

The matter did not end with dissertations with plagiarism and scandals with universities and the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 2015, theology was approved as a scientific specialty in Russia. This happened after a request from Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus', who spoke to members of the Federation Council and State Duma deputies. This initiative caused widespread discontent in the scientific community. The Higher Attestation Commission promised that an expert commission for awarding relevant academic degrees would be created only by 2017. However, everything happened much earlier - on August 11, 2016.

Merger and reduction

Dmitry Livanov did not ignore school education. However, it is fair to say that in this area the main reforms - the Unified State Exam, the new educational standard, the optimization of educational institutions - were started and developed by his predecessor, Andrei Fursenko. Livanov simply continued his endeavors.

Fursenko received all the criticism and criticism regarding the introduction of the Unified State Examination. By the time Livanov arrived, the Unified Exam system was already working without significant glitches. The minister only instructed Rosobrnadzor to further improve it. And in this, by the way, he succeeded. It was under Livanov that Unified State Exam tourism was defeated, and the number of cheaters decreased many times over. Including through the use of technical means - video cameras and cellular jammers.

This is where the positive impressions seem to end. The school reform met with a lot of negative feedback in the teaching and parent community. Thousands of people attended rallies against changes in this area. However, opponents of the reform failed to achieve noticeable results.

Most budgetary educational institutions have switched to the so-called state order system: that is, in order for a school to receive funding, it needs to demonstrate its profitability. If previously the amount of funding was influenced by the status of the institution, the achievements of its students and social significance, now the primary evaluation criterion is the number of schoolchildren. Rural schools were the first to suffer from this optimization. Where classes could not be filled, schools were simply closed.

At the same time, the process of consolidating schools and merging them into educational centers began. The reform equalized special schools, gymnasiums with a bias and regular secondary schools, depriving advanced institutions of the right to additional funding for in-depth study of subjects, individual classes, design and research activities, medical and psychological support for students, round-the-clock stay, etc. The equalization model was tested in Moscow. As a result, the best Moscow schools that occupied the top lines of the ratings found themselves on the verge of bankruptcy.

Photo: Alexey Malgavko / RIA Novosti

Not just a textbook

Another controversial educational initiative from Livanov's time was a unified history textbook. In 2013, Vladimir Putin proposed thinking about creating textbooks in which the history of the country would be presented within the framework of a single concept, within the framework of the interconnection of all stages of Russian history and respect for all pages of our past. The Ministry of Education took charge of the implementation, and accordingly, the head of the department also came under fire. In particular, opponents stated that the desire to impose on schoolchildren a single view of the country’s history takes us back to the times of universal unanimity.

The textbook creators faced a difficult task. They had to tell schoolchildren about such controversial episodes of our history as Stalin’s repressions, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and the war in Chechnya. Obviously, during the writing process, the team of authors encountered insoluble contradictions and a single textbook never appeared. In August 2014, Livanov said that instead of a line of textbooks, a “single historical and cultural standard” would be developed, on which the authors of all textbooks would rely.

Personnel patriot

Unlike Livanov, who came to the ministry from the Institute of Steel and Alloys, Olga Vasilyeva is a strong humanist. Lenta.ru's interlocutors, speaking about the new head of the department, point to Vasilyeva's academic experience: she managed to work in various educational institutions. In addition, she has experience interacting with purely scientific structures. The new minister has several diplomas - first she graduated from the conducting and choral department of the Moscow Institute of Culture, and then from the history department at the Pedagogical Institute and the international relations department at the Diplomatic Academy. At the very end of the 80s, the future minister completed her graduate studies at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Vasilyeva’s area of ​​scientific interest is the history of the Orthodox Church. For example, in her PhD thesis she talked about the “patriotic activities of the Russian Orthodox Church” during the Great Patriotic War. Throughout the turbulent nineties, Olga Vasilyeva worked at the Center for the History of Religion and the Church of the Historical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Having already gained academic experience, in 2002 she headed the department of religious studies at the Presidential Academy of Civil Service.

A decade later, she was appointed deputy director of the department of culture in the Russian government, and a year later - to a comparable position in the public projects department of the Presidential Administration (AP).

This unit does not have a large budget or broad powers, the media noted. The task of this structure is primarily to ensure coordination - with departments, government, universities and representatives of the professional community. This fact seems important - the department is supervised by the first deputy head of the Administration, Vyacheslav Volodin, who, as Lenta.ru sources note, has repeatedly noted Vasilyeva’s professional qualities.

Vasilyeva’s colleagues noted that she did not stop teaching throughout her career, including while working at the AP. At the Academy of National Economy, she is still listed as a professor in the department of state-confessional relations and gives courses of lectures on religious topics - for example, on state-church relations. The list of publications is appropriate - in particular, material on the political management of the ethnocultural process is mentioned.

Professor Vasilyeva’s scientific interests were also reflected in her activities after moving from an academic environment to administrative positions. She regularly spoke at events where ideological issues were discussed. Thus, she attended discussions organized by the All-Russian Popular Front on “conservatism as an ideology of development.”

Vasilyeva, however, touched directly on educational issues in public infrequently and from a specific angle. For example, the deputy head of the AP department gave lectures on patriotism. Then she cited the example of patriotic education in the United States, where the morning in many schools begins with the oath of allegiance to the national flag.

Only lazy people today do not criticize the quality of knowledge in domestic universities. Moreover, criticism comes both from the teachers themselves, dissatisfied with the conditions in which the reform has placed them, and from employers, dissatisfied with the fact that they cannot find the necessary young specialists on the labor market, and are forced to spend time and resources on the actual retraining of yesterday’s graduates. Education Minister Dmitry Livanov himself does not deny the obvious, setting a specific task for Russian universities - to return to the quality level of the USSR.

Over the past ten years, the positions of Russian universities in world rankings have been steadily falling. And since 2007, not a single Russian university, except Moscow State University, has been included in the annual list of the 500 best educational institutions in the world, which has gained international authority.

One can, of course, console the patriotic ego with the fact that this ranking evaluates not the quality of knowledge, but the reputation of the universities themselves. However, if we look at world quality ratings, the picture here is not very encouraging. From Russia, only Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University made it into the Times global ranking “400 best universities 2011 - 2012”, and even then at the end of the second and third hundred, respectively.

Unified State Exam lowers the bar

Let's come down from the heights of international rankings to the ground and look at the everyday life of post-reform Russian higher education. The Unified State Exam appeared in Russia in 2001 and has since become a mandatory national standard, based on which one can judge the quality of the entire system.

From year to year, experts note a general decrease in the number of examinees’ scores. A good example is the Unified State Examination in mathematics. Last year, the number of graduates who passed it by 100 points decreased eight times compared to the results of 2013. As a result, the minimum threshold for passing the exam was lowered to 20 points instead of 24.

A similar situation arose last year with the main exam in the Russian language: Russian schoolchildren failed it. There were especially many poor students in the North Caucasus. Result: we had to reduce the minimum threshold by 12 points, since many students simply did not meet the previous threshold of 36 points.

In fact, the general decrease in the passing score for passing the Unified State Exam, imposed from above, only confirms the trend of disadvantage, masking the growing ignorance of applicants by lowering the lower level of knowledge required of them. The same last year's decision of Rosobrnadzor on Russian language scores, according to the head of the department Sergei Kravtsov, was made to avoid a situation where many graduates were left without a certificate. At the same time, Rosobrnadzor then refused to name the percentage of schoolchildren who failed the exam, citing the fact that this was unprincipled.

Teachers talk about the state of affairs in the industry more openly. “It turned out based on the results of 11 years of schooling that we didn’t teach the children anything. This year, the threshold of knowledge that allowed issuing a certificate was 3 tasks on a primary school topic in grades 5-6. Moreover, it turned out that the results that graduates show are even worse than the results that graduates show after 9th grade. We must sadly admit that the education system has failed,” stated the honorary education worker of the Russian Federation Dmitry Gushchin a year ago.

“Teachers, parents, and the public of the country have been sounding the alarm for several years about the low level of language and speech literacy of secondary school graduates, and the population as a whole, calling on the state to take drastic measures to correct the situation. However, as we see, there are still no tangible changes... There is still no need to talk about a turning point, about a sharp turn for the better in the country as a whole,” the head of the Federation Council echoes him Valentina Matvienko.

The Minister of Education himself does not deny the obvious. Dmitry Livanov, directly indicating a sharp decline in the quality of education.

Budget billions for...ignorance

Opponents of the Unified State Exam say that in its current form this system does not work, and its failure revealed the total backwardness of the “reformed” Russian education. Moreover, many scandals traditionally arise around the Unified State Exam, including financial ones. The report of the public movement Obrnadzor, Anatomy of the Unified State Exam, essentially calls last year’s Unified State Exam a failure.

1,240,643,800 rubles were spent on organizing the 2014 exam, that is, four times more than in 2013, when expenses amounted to just over 312 million rubles.

The ignorance of modern high school students and freshmen can kill on the spot. Several years ago, videos with basic video questions that a journalist asked random passers-by between the ages of 18 and 20 resonated in the blogosphere. The young people seriously answered, for example, that “The Holocaust is probably some kind of shore,” and Yesenin killed Pushkin in a duel.

Criticism was ignored and ignored

They wrote and warned that the Unified State Exam is killing the domestic education system back in 2008. Criticism of the Unified State Exam in 2011 was supported by the then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, noting the justice of the reproaches against the main brainchild of the educational reform. Expansion of public control over the exam was named as one of the measures to correct the situation.

And here is 2012: “Discontent with the Unified State Exam is growing in society, but the authorities ignore these sentiments”

The point of the reform was to move away from the supposedly bad (out-of-date, corrupt, and the list goes on) Soviet educational system. As a result, they gave birth to a new system, calling it “reform.” As a result, after 14 years, the low quality of education is already recognized by the relevant minister Dmitry Livanov. The official uses as an example not the high standards of education resulting from the reforms, but the high standards of Soviet education, for the sake of abandoning which the reform was started.

Russian society also gave its assessment of the Unified State Examination. According to the Levada Center, a record (48%) number of Russian citizens, since 2004, believe that the Unified State Exam evaluates the level of knowledge of schoolchildren worse than a regular exam.

Now, in a crisis, the country finds itself in a situation where, without investing in knowledge and human capital, there will simply be no breakthrough in any of the industries. At the same time, the collapse in oil prices and the reduction in budget revenues is not the most favorable background for serious reforms, which are impossible without financial injections.

There's no turning back

Stated by the Minister Dmitry Livanov plans to return to “Soviet quality standards” would seem to offer a simple and clear conclusion. If those quality standards are recognized as a kind of exemplary beacon to which we need to strive, then maybe it’s not worth reinventing the wheel? Based on common sense, Soviet methods of organizing the educational process are not so bad, since they produced the standards of knowledge quality that are so highly valued by the current Minister Dmitry Livanov. Unlike the Unified State Exam.

Are the plans announced by Dmitry Livanov to return to the quality of education from the times of the USSR realistic, or is this just another attempt at inept bureaucratic PR, like big words about import substitution?

It seems that with the current introduction, the only possible way to implement the Lebanese idea is the invention of a time machine that will return Russian education together with the relevant minister and the author of the reform, the Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Fursenko, right into the Soviet era. This will mean admitting one’s own mistakes and the fact that post-Soviet education, at best, stood still, and at worst, went backwards.

Of course, another answer to the question posed is possible, but it is even more futuristic. As one popular joke says, if an establishment is not in demand, it is not necessary to rearrange the beds, but to change the staff.