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Educational reforms in Russia | ||
Tags: Russia | School Education | ||
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| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6491 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 9 of 14 07 July 2010 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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This project includes not only education, but cuts and move to self-financing of hospitals, urban improvement, research instututes and so on. Even though it still has not been approved, but if a mass protest doesn't wake up, it will pass the parliament, aims at 2 things:
First, deny the basic and the most essential duties of the state. Second, the "aristocracy" would like to close even more the "social lifts" system, to let themselves and their children stay on top. Right now poor but talented persons can make their way to success by public education and compete with rich kids for managerial positions and lucrative sectors. Closing this route will let the riches get their kids smoothly to the best universities just as Cordelia says (well, those will no longer be good universities, as well as those who got indulgences in studies won't have good education since they learn nothing). Our so-called "elite", in fact, gets scared of any firm protest, but the problem is that people don't do that enough or rarely hit the soft spots. Those who know Russian may be curious to read this article: Сибмамин прорыв, about a group of activists from a web forum who got a major success in fighting for some of their rights. Edited by Siberiano on 07 July 2010 at 4:00pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7154 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 10 of 14 07 July 2010 at 10:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is disappointing but unfortunately not too surprising for me (although it's good that at least some people are riled up enough to resist or at least question the purpose of the "reforms") Despite what Cordelia mentioned about Russia's recent socialist (more like communist) past, in the grand scheme of things such a utopian way of thinking or social organization was an aberration in Russia's societal organization. Russian consciousness has been living in a tiered-society with very obvious barriers between those in power and those who are not and it's not something that changes within the passing of a generation or two. Siberiano's comment about the current "aristocracy's" fear of protest (and obliquely social change or a generally mobile society) fits neatly when considering Russian history. Kievan Rus' and the Russian principalities were monarchist like other medieval entities while the Mongol Yoke delineated a very clear boundary between the Mongol occupiers/aristocracy and the Slavonophone commoners/serfs. The removal of the Mongols brought little change to the governing mindset and so we see a continuation of a monarchist social setup with a czar and aristocrats on top. On paper, the communist revolution (or even quasi-coup d'état) marked a drastic change in Russia's development from its monarchist past. Yet as it turned out, the replacement of monarchy with communism meant the supplanting of the feudalistic/"counter-revolutionary" aristocracy with a socially-favoured class of apparatchiks or senior party members and the Czar with the General Secretary. The difference in governing between the nominally egalitarian USSR and the old Russian Empire seems too small despite the nominal aversion of the communists to the "old ways". If these proposed educational "reforms" (arguably "regressions") would pass, they would then reinforce the trend to revert to a social organization and limited social mobility as seen in the past. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6941 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 11 of 14 08 July 2010 at 12:10am | IP Logged | |||||
One can say this of many West European countries, since aristocracy wasn't just a Russian phenomenon, so I don't know how good of an explanation it is. Maybe the state is just going broke. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7154 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 12 of 14 08 July 2010 at 12:58am | IP Logged | |||||
That's true although I was also thinking more about Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA which have either no aristocracy/royalty or only a nominal link to it. Of course though, these societies have social classes like anywhere else but it appears that enough of the citizenry there feels that it has just enough of a fighting chance to advance socially if they are sufficiently diligent in their working or educational ethic. You're not totally helpless if you belong to the "wrong" social class or were born to parents in the "wrong" profession (or no profession at all) as there are options to get educated for little to no-cost (bursaries/scholarships do help as well) to yourself and that hard work is as important as being socially-connected. However in societies which have a longer tradition of strong class distinctions or "social pigeon-holing", the idea of social advancement without undue reliance on connections or even bribery at the expense of honest work seems less feasible. The lack of "social-levelling tools" such as a largely meritocratic spirit or comprehensive and low-cost education for all citizenry regardless of wealth or social position only helps to cement the position of the rulers and the associated elites over the ruled population. Russia may indeed be having more financial trouble that we don't know about but it doesn't look good if it starts losing the ability to fund institutions that would give enough of its citizens outside the governing circles a reasonable semblance of a fighting chance to advance socially or improve their livelihoods. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6941 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 13 of 14 08 July 2010 at 1:14am | IP Logged | |||||
Many European countries were not like that in the 19th century. Here are the very first two paragraphs of the Introduction to De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America": "Among the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of condition among the people. I readily discovered the prodigious influence that this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society; it gives a peculiar direction to public opinion and a peculiar tenor to the laws; it imparts new maxims to the governing authorities and peculiar habits to the governed. I soon perceived that the influence of this fact extends far beyond the political character and the laws of the country, and that it has no less effect on civil society than on the government; it creates opinions, gives birth to new sentiments, founds novel customs, and modifies whatever it does not produce. The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I perceived that this equality of condition is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived and the central point at which all my observations constantly terminated." And yet, this was long ago. West European countries are now undeniably democratic, so past lack of social mobility can be considerably reduced in a century. Edited by frenkeld on 08 July 2010 at 1:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6491 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 14 of 14 09 July 2010 at 8:43am | IP Logged | |||||
Exactly. Though, protests are on the rise. In my region, there has been an explosion of such activities recently, and in other regions too. As for socialism, I can give you some pictures of a system that is perfect in principle, but not working in real life. #1. The Trade Unions and The Responsible Worker The idea was that everyone's guaranteed to have a job, and this went even further: everyone was olbiged to have a job. Having no job for a certain period of time (тунеядство) lead to legal consequences. Nobody could easily fire a worker. If there was a reason, like very poor performance or, more interestingly, alcohol abuse, this person was given a chance. So, instead of firing right away, the enterpsise had to: make its political party cell meet, name and shame the bad guy, give him a probation period and find him supervisors, "the responsible" persons (even though they had no responsibility if this probation failed). The worker had to be re-brought-up (перевоспитываться). In theory, this lets the worker take responsibility and consciously improve their own attitude. In RL, it became hard to fire a bad worker, because this sequence - note, name&shame, give a probation - was repeated. Certainly, if working badly or drinking in the workplace had no consequences, everyone learned that they could do it more and more. The consequences are visile in the chart of pure alcohol consumption per capita: right after WWII, we were behind France, Italy and Spain in alcohol consumption, but in 1970s we surpassed them. (more stories coming soon) Edited by Siberiano on 09 July 2010 at 10:47am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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