A new Education Code has long been needed, but the pluses of the current amendments are lost against the background of the minuses, an independent expert explains to Belsat.
Alyaksandr Lukashenka has signed an updated Education Code. Expert in education, science, and innovation, Andrei Laurukhin, told Belsat what it all means for Belarusian education.
Secondary education will be made compulsory. But everyone has it anyway.
Previously (Article 5 of the Code of 2011), general primary education (9 grades) was required, but now (Article 2 of the Code of 2021), public secondary education (11 grades) is compulsory. This might seem silly because secondary education coverage in Belarus is already about 100%. But while in 2015-16, it (together with vocational and specialized secondary education) was 98%, according to the results of the 2019 census, it was only 94%. Probably, the norm is trying to maintain the previous (2010-11) level achieved.
The expansion of “targeted education” means the increase of mandatory long-term assignments to new levels of education.
Whereas previously (Article 84 of the Code-2011) the work for five years after “targeted training” applied to the first level of higher education (bachelors), now (Article 75 of the Code 2021) it also applies to “special higher education” (masters with an uninterrupted cycle of education). While previously the obligation to work for at least three years used for graduates of specialized secondary education, now it applies to “advanced higher education” (masters level). At the same time, the norm states that a specific period of service can be specified in the contract by the employer, which in practice means only the possibility of increasing it (in the Code, it is noted as “not less”).
“Thus, the practice of long-term distribution is expanded and lengthened, i.e., it actually turns into academic servitude or a tribute, if one has to pay money to refuse distribution,” Laurukhin concludes.
Only people who have finished eleventh grade will be allowed to attend technical schools?
It’s ambiguous, but it looks fine. General secondary education (11 grades) is called compulsory. So, according to part 5 of article 144, primarily public education (9 grades) gives the right to continue general secondary education and vocational and specialized secondary education. Article 169 describes the period of vocational education based on primary education both without and with secondary schooling. Article 186 describes the time frame for specialized secondary education based on general primary and general secondary education.
Distance learning is good, but it will not be for schools?
Previously, all forms of distance education were illegal in Belarus — even in the context of the coronavirus. The new code “legalized” distance learning, but the unique part describes distance education only at the levels above general secondary: secondary special, vocational, higher, and additional education. This opens “space for explanations,” notes Laurukhin, but the simplest one is that distance learning is not for schools.
Additional education for the gifted was promised.
The texts of the press service promised it in the Children’s Technopark. Laurukhin says it’s probably progressive “if the technopark isn’t closed altogether because we’ve seen the signals.”
The redistribution of powers of state bodies in education is “murky.” Laurukhin says that he has tried to understand what has been re-distributed, but he has only seen minor corrections. At the same time, the vertical model, with the president and the presidential administration playing the leading role, remains the same, right down to the fact that the president has the power to create “other bodies of self-government” in higher education institutions.
“A new code was needed, but not at all like this one,” Laurukhin adds. “This is not a new code at all, but an old code, slightly updated not for the better. The insolence and shamelessness with which the officials give reports about public discussions are shameful!”
The expert says that three years ago, the Bologna Public Committee (of which Laurukhin is a member) and the expert community sent to the Belarusian Ministry of Education and other state bodies proposals for changes to the Education Code. In September-November 2021, these proposals were updated and sent again to the House of Representatives through the Free Trade Union of Belarus. The first time there was no response, and the second time they said (in a letter signed by deputy Ihar Marzalyuk) that “we were already too late,” although, according to the procedure, there was still plenty of time.
“It turned out to be an imitation of some amendments to the Code, pathetic, unconcealed and shameful. It creates an illusion aimed for no one, for naive people maybe,” summarizes Laurukhin. “We have noted that there is a fabrication of changes, pseudo edits”.
