"Have a good mood!" Five loud sayings of Dmitry Medvedev. Teachers and Medvedev: what to do with school salaries Medvedev about teachers and business reviews

Officials are increasingly losing their sense of reality, and they are communicating with their fellow citizens more and more cynically and shamelessly. © Photo from government.ru

At the “Territory of Meanings” forum, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, when asked about the low salaries of teachers, replied that being a teacher is a calling, and those who want to earn money could become businessmen. The head of government also suggested that an energetic teacher would find an opportunity to “somehow, so to speak, earn something else.” These words of the prime minister caused indignation among Russians. A petition immediately appeared on the Internet calling for the resignation of the Prime Minister. Within ten hours from the moment the petition was created, the number of signatures exceeded 50 thousand people.

Dmitry Medvedev’s statement about small teachers’ salaries as an acceptable norm is unacceptable for the Prime Minister, says Sergei Pogodin, director of school No. 4 in the city of Nelidov in the Tver region. As the teacher told a Rosbalt correspondent, for this reason he signed an online petition calling for Medvedev’s resignation. “I believe that the prime minister cannot talk about teachers’ salaries like this: “if you want to get money, then go into business...” Pogodin emphasized.

The director noted that teachers in schools actually earn unacceptably little. “The teacher’s salary now is 7,800 rubles. In order for teachers to receive an “average” salary, they have to take two rates or more,” stated Sergei Pogodin.

Dmitry Medvedev’s words about the “normality” of small teachers’ salaries are perceived among teachers as another slap in the face, said Andrei Rudoy, ​​a member of the council of the interregional trade union “Teacher”. “Everyone is already accustomed to spitting from the authorities. This is just another slap in the face that will be accepted,” Rudoy stated.

The teacher emphasized that from an economic point of view, the proposal for teachers to go into business is absurd. “The structure of society is such that there is no place in the market for so many businessmen. Teachers make up about one percent of the country's population. Even if they go into small business, the market simply will not accept them. Moreover, we can recall the statistics that one out of forty business enterprises that start operating survives. But even if teachers go into business, who will teach children? After all, there are already enough problems in education. Of course, Medvedev’s statement is meaningless in all respects: both from an economic point of view and simply from a human one,” Rudoy said.

Dmitry Medvedev’s words indicate the government’s policy of commercializing everything and everyone, including the education sector, says Nikolai Sosnov, a representative of the “Civil Initiative for Free Education”. As the social activist said, the school is increasingly involved in commercial activity and this is harmful to education.

“The schooling business has been going on for a long time. Thanks to the reforms of the last decade, such as the Unified State Exam, Federal Law-83 or the new law on education, a legal framework has been provided for business on formally free education. It's now legal to make money from public schooling. Medvedev's words only confirm this trend. The head of government clearly indicated: the authorities want to see businessmen in the school, and those who cannot or who don’t like it should sit quietly and not ask for a salary increase,” stated Nikolai Sosnov.

According to the social activist, attempts by school leaders to “make money” often go beyond the boundaries of both morality and laws. “For example, only recently we were sent a detailed story about how the director of one district school rented out its walls for advertising. Billboards advertising women's underwear were to be installed on the building. The situation was monitored in a timely manner and resolved “under the carpet.” Another recent example. A paid weightlifting club was organized in a rural school, ostensibly for schoolchildren. In fact, under the guise of a children's club, a commercial hall for adults operated, and the money went to no one knows where. And many more examples can be given. This is bad because the school director should not be involved in business, he has other tasks. If he only thinks about how to get money, the educational process is over. It turns out like the joke about the policeman who thought that they gave him a gun to “spin.” And I’m also talking about normal directors. But there are outright scammers,” Nikolai Sosnov listed.

According to the social activist, a significant part of teachers will not make a business out of school, but those who follow this path can go very “far.” “Once I had to talk with one director, and he told me that during advanced training courses he was taught how to make a school self-sustaining, and ideally, profitable. All this is presented as a benefit for the students, they say, if there is more money, the director will be able to do a lot for the school. In practice, business in educational institutions destroys the very foundations of the education system. The recent revelation of a grandiose fraudulent scheme at the Penza Technological University, the arrest of the rector of the Far Eastern Federal University, regular criminal cases against school directors - this is the tip, but we do not see the iceberg. We will only see it when Russia attacks it in a big way and sinks to the bottom of the third world like the Titanic, because without a normal education system our country is doomed to vegetate,” Sosnov noted.

News about attempts by teachers to “earn money,” indeed, can often be found in sections of crime chronicles or under the heading “Scandals.” And this is not surprising - teachers in institutes were not trained for business, and people with an entrepreneurial spirit do not become teachers.

In Novocheboksarsk, a young Russian language teacher worked part-time dancing in a nightclub. The parent of one of the schoolgirls was surprised to see her daughter's teacher on stage performing go-go. A mathematics teacher from a Moscow gymnasium, in her free time, worked part-time not only by tutoring, but also by demonstrating products in a lingerie store. Students had the opportunity to see their “strict teacher” on the Internet in a not at all strict negligee. In Kaliningrad, parents of kindergarten students learned that their music teacher was also known under the creative pseudonym Nastya Monpasier - the girl danced striptease and provided intimate services to clients.

This spring, police in Novosibirsk alternately detained two teachers - a man and a woman. Their teaching professions were different, but their part-time jobs were similar: both were involved in drug distribution. Their colleague from Kamensk-Uralsky also sold drugs, and in addition also made homemade weapons. In the apartment of a music teacher in the wind instrument class, law enforcement officers seized five homemade pistols.

School directors also sometimes find themselves in the dock, although more often for other crimes. If extortion of gifts by teachers is sometimes tolerated by society, then school directors, as civil servants, are responsible for bribes or theft of school funds. And the director of school No. 11 in Voskresensk, Nina Medvedeva, who worked part-time as the head of the local election commission, several years ago found herself in the dock for falsifying election results at a polling station.

Director of the Institute of Globalization Problems Mikhail Delyagin criticized the prime minister's assertion that big money can be earned by going into business. The well-known economist recalled that only after the increase in social contributions, more than half a million individual enterprises were closed in the country, and recently support for small businesses has been reduced significantly.

“A business, if it is not a business of cutting up budget money or an oligarchic business of exporting raw materials, is feeling very bad. Going into business to make money is like going on a sexy walking tour to a well-known small Peruvian town. When Dmitry Medvedev said that you need to make money, he probably didn’t mean business. He said this for the sake of decency, but most likely he meant corruption,” the expert noted.

Medvedev’s refusal to discuss the unacceptability of low teachers’ salaries indicates that the government does not intend to implement the May decrees of the Russian President, Delyagin believes. “But we are not talking about big earnings, but about human earnings that would allow teachers to live like human beings and make ends meet. According to Mr. Medvedev, a teacher should not receive money that is enough for a normal life. Apparently, this is the fundamental position of United Russia and the government,” stated Mikhail Delyagin.

According to the economist, low teacher salaries affect the entire development of the country. “This is an expression of complete contempt for Russia. A teacher is a person who creates a nation. It was said at one time that a Prussian teacher won the battle of Sadovaya, and a Soviet teacher won the battle of Stalingrad. “United Russia and its leader Medvedev made sure that Russia would never win again,” Delyagin noted.

Officials are increasingly losing their sense of reality, and they are communicating with their fellow citizens more and more cynically and shamelessly. Who or what will bring them to their senses?

Dmitry Remizov

Speaking at the “Territory of Meanings” forum, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev responded to complaints about teachers’ low salaries by saying that they themselves chose this profession. The statement by the head of government angered users of social networks: they ridiculed Medvedev and tried to understand how to interpret the words of a man who occupies the second most important post in the state.

A teacher from Dagestan asked Medvedev a question about low teachers’ salaries. He asked to explain why young teachers in the region receive 10-15 thousand rubles, and police officers - from 50 thousand.

The head of government began by talking about his personal experience: he remembered that he received 90 rubles when he started teaching after graduating from the institute, and police salaries were significantly higher even then: a lieutenant, according to Medvedev, received 250 rubles. Every person has a choice, he concluded.

The prime minister also added that “a modern, energetic teacher is capable of not only receiving the salary that is due to him according to his job schedule, but also somehow earning something else,” which many took as an approval of bribes in the field of education.

They also remembered that at the beginning of his career the prime minister taught civil and Roman law at the Faculty of Law of Leningrad State University, then St. Petersburg State University.

Many of the comments concerned Medvedev himself.

The reason for popular anger was the prime minister’s speech at the educational forum “Territory of Meanings.” Answering the question of a teacher from Dagestan why teachers have a small salary, and police officers have a large one, Medvedev replied that a teacher is a calling, and whoever wants to earn money will find an opportunity “to somehow, so to speak, earn something else.”

The Russians, still remembering Medvedev’s call “there is no money, but you hold on,” reacted to the next verbal confrontation by the prime minister with indignation. As a result, a petition soon appeared on Change.org demanding his resignation. “The Cabinet of Ministers must be headed by a competent, educated person who cares for the country,” the document says. In a short time, the petition received over 150 thousand signatures.

However, this conflict is more interesting for its background. Indeed, recently, Dmitry Medvedev has made obvious blunders more than once during his speeches, although, it must be said, he did not shine with eloquence before. However, now his mistakes are receiving increased attention. What is it – are the people tired of the government’s mistakes, or is the prime minister’s emphasis on the mistakes of an artificial nature? It is possible that this is so. After all, Medvedev is convenient for the Kremlin as a lightning rod through which popular discontent can be lowered into the ground. After all, one can hardly expect that Vladimir Putin will dismiss the prime minister. As you know, Medvedev is the leader of United Russia, and his dismissal would visibly hit the party’s ratings on the eve of the elections. However, there is also an opinion that the main beneficiary of this story is Dmitry Anatolyevich himself. As you know, the president does not like it if someone tries to force him to make decisions, so the petition will most likely remain unanswered, and Medvedev, on the contrary, will retain his post.

Vitaly ARKOV, political scientist:

– It is beneficial for someone to remove the prime minister from office by feigning dissatisfaction. In Russia there is a special portal where any citizen can create a petition and, if it is popular, implement a public initiative. What is done on other sites, especially foreign ones, is not of decisive importance for the Russian authorities.

Nikolay MIRONOV, head of the Center for Economic and Political Reforms:

“They are working against Medvedev both through Alexei Kudrin and through the pre-election opposition. Any unfortunate word or photo is immediately promoted in media publications and social networks. Another thing is that there is discontent in the country, so everything falls on fertile ground.

Alexey MUKHIN, General Director of the Center for Political Information:

– According to my information and indirect data, Medvedev will retain the post of prime minister after the September elections. That is, in the foreseeable future no one will replace him. At a certain point, it looked like Medvedev might soon “leave.” But now I would venture to assume that he will retain the post of prime minister after September 18 – and until December 2017.

If we didn’t have Dmitry Medvedev, we would have to invent him. Because he cuts through the truth with a frankness that any opposition can envy. At the same time, you reveal your own incompetence so naively that you can’t help but think: if the prime minister is like that, what are his subordinates like?

Here is another “wise” advice to the impoverished population from the Prime Minister: to Russian teachers who are dissatisfied with a salary of 15 thousand rubles, he said that teaching is a calling, “and if you want to earn money, there are a lot of great places where you can do it faster and better. Same business." And besides, according to Dmitry Anatolyevich, a hard-working teacher can “somehow, so to speak, earn something else” - in addition to the basic salary.

These are the rosy ideas, apparently, that are painted in the head of the second person in the state: uninterested grabbers without a vocation, thinking only about money, will leave school and start a profitable business and will be very happy. In their place will come energetic, hardworking teachers who will not be embarrassed by meager salaries, because they have a calling, and therefore will also be very happy. And the most energetic of them, in their free time from their main jobs, will start working part-time in business and combine their vocation with wealth - that is, there will be no limit to their happiness.

Such views of the prime minister are quite understandable: we all know very well about government officials who quite successfully manage to combine their main activities with business, even a very large one. But here’s the problem: what the officials can do, for some reason the teachers can’t do it.

The director of the Transbaikal school, Valentina Manikovskaya, tried to explain to the prime minister what the reason for this paradox is and why teachers are so unlucky. In simple and accessible words, she explained things that are understandable to the vast majority of us: that doing business requires a lot of time, which a teacher does not have, because work by vocation requires enormous dedication and takes almost 24 hours a day. That a business needs initial capital, but a teacher’s salary is only enough to last until the next salary, and even then with difficulty.

As for overly greedy teachers leaving for business “to make ends meet,” this is, of course, possible, but it is fraught with very sad consequences: a holy place (even a low-paid one) is never empty, and others will come to take the place of departed teachers. Those who, due to weak abilities and other shortcomings, cannot find another job. And our children will be taught by those who are not fit for anything else... And this is not fun at all, Dmitry Anatolyevich.

Therefore, it makes sense to familiarize yourself with the experience of other countries - those where education (and the economy in general, which is a consequence of education) is doing well. There, teachers' earnings are not left to the market, and they are quite comparable to the income of an average businessman. For example, in Germany, a teacher's salary ranges from 3,200 to 4,700 euros per month. And in Finland, even a novice teacher receives 3,600 euros per month. As a result, the largest competition in Finnish universities is for teaching departments. Accordingly, the smartest people go there. Accordingly, smart teachers prepare good personnel for the economy. Accordingly, the economy is good.

So, maybe it’s not worth sending teachers after all? Even if it’s for business.

Russian teachers expressed outrage at Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's words that teachers who lack salaries should go into business.

Medvedev, when asked by a teacher from Dagestan about the size of teachers’ salaries of 10-15 thousand rubles, replied: “I am often asked about teachers and lecturers. This is a calling, and if you want to earn money, there are a lot of great places where you can do it faster and better. Same business." The prime minister also expressed confidence that a modern teacher is capable of not only receiving a salary on schedule, but also “earning money in some other way.”

A teacher of Russian language and literature from St. Petersburg considers the prime minister’s words inadequate. “Judging by Medvedev’s comment, the government doesn’t care about the education and future of children. He said it without thinking. It turns out that he is separate, the people are separate, the country is separate. He stated that teaching is a calling. So what - teachers now have to suck their paws? — the teacher told Rosbalt.

A chemistry teacher from the city of Kyakhta, Natalya Ismagilova, told the portal “Number One” that teachers are outraged by this attitude of the government. “Not taking into account the salary of a laboratory assistant and other additional duties, I, a teacher of the highest category, receive only 16 thousand rubles for my hours. We have no time to do business. How many reports and all sorts of pieces of paper were dumped on us. You come home at six o'clock and immediately sit down at the computer. You need to prepare a lesson, check your notebooks, and also create a working program. There is no free time at all. Like there are no benefits. In Soviet times, we could at least get medical treatment and relax in sanatoriums. There is nothing now. But all the social pressures come to us: the census of children, work on elections, and so on. And all this is on a voluntary basis,” Ismagilova said.

“Yes, teaching children is our calling. But to use this is cowardice. This is dishonest and unfair. How much pressure can you put on patriotism, vocation, love for children, etc.? A teacher also needs to live somehow. And provide something for your children. Finally rest. Instead of saying such things, the state needs to create normal living conditions for teachers. Just taking from a teacher without giving him anything in return is impudence,” the teacher emphasized.

Retired teacher Olga Vasilyeva was offended by the prime minister’s words: “This is very offensive to hear. Teachers are qualified specialists who deliberately went to study for this specialty. Many have extensive experience and experience. A good teacher puts everything into his work: money, strength, nerves. He gives almost everything to the children. And to hear such a statement from the country's prime minister is, to say the least, surprising. It’s very disappointing when teachers are now, roughly speaking, sent to “trade potatoes.”

Former teacher Marina Klimova followed the prime minister’s advice, but bitterly regrets it: “I went to school to work out of vocation. She loved her job and the children. But, unfortunately, what is happening now in connection with these reforms in schools is a nightmare. Last year I was forced to leave my profession in order to be able to earn a decent living and provide for my children. Now I work in trade, that is, I am forced to do something I don’t like. Does Medvedev advise all teachers to do as I do? Who will work in schools then?”

“I am amazed at the resilience of our teachers, those who are able to endure real bullying for years. Monstrous reforms, inhuman working conditions, humiliating runs for incentive payments, writing tons of reports and other nonsense that distracts from what a teacher should really do - teach children. And all this for the sake of a calling. But I think that a person who is directly involved in the mess that is now happening in our schools is ashamed to say such things! Instead of giving such stupid advice, isn’t it time to get down to business and finally bring order to this area and at least try to return our education system to its former glory?” - Marina Klimova emphasized.