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Finalists of the 2024 Teacher of the Year, Educator of the Year, Principal of the Year, First Teacher competitions and Class Theme television show took part in the meeting.

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Excerpts from the transcript of the meeting with winners of national professional competitions in education

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Friends, good afternoon.

Early October is a time when we have a tradition of honouring our teachers, educators and mentors, and we are holding this meeting with Teacher’s Day just around the corner. Yesterday, on October 2, Russia observed the Vocational Education Worker’s Day.

Of course, I would like to begin by congratulating everyone for whom these dates matter, including teachers, their students and pupils, as well as their families, parents, grandmothers and grandfathers, and all those who hold warm memories of their teachers. In fact, this covers our entire nation. There is a very close relationship between these professional holidays, which goes far beyond the fact that their dates almost coincide. In fact, we all understand that they represent different educational levels, but these levels form a single educational space.

Our common objective, including as part of the Youth and Children new national project, is to create a truly single and modern space that would live up to present-day requirements and generate the momentum we need in the 21^st century. This must also enable us to deliver on our national development goals in general, so that students in schools, vocational training colleges and higher education institutions learn and adopt the values that bind our society together. This is a way for them to succeed as professionals and to move on with their lives with confidence by serving the country and its people.

Of course, you and your colleagues among teachers play an essential role in these efforts. I am delighted to welcome outstanding, talented, and dedicated teachers, educators and mentors, and would like to congratulate you on succeeding in various professional excellence competitions.

Your ideas and expertise, your accomplishments and teaching style are valued by your colleagues, and this is what matters the most. This is the biggest and most important appreciation of what you do – very important for you and for those you teach: for young people, for teenagers. Because learning and growing is always a collaboration of teachers and students.

Your strong and innovative educational methods must certainly be promoted in the teaching community. I know that you are quite active in sharing your experience with colleagues, also through participating in professional competitions. I know this because we have been meeting regularly. I hope that this work, which is supported by the Ministry of Education and regional authorities, will continue on a system-wide basis, along with other initiatives to enhance the professional development system for educators.

I know that in this respect, schoolteachers are interested in closer cooperation with major research and educational institutions, and industrial companies. Indeed, direct interaction with leading scientists, engineers, and representatives of other professions enriches a teacher’s expertise and helps them fine-tune their teaching priorities. I will ask the government to consider how best to organise such interaction.

I would like to address your colleagues from Donbass and Novorossiya, from the Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod regions. Under very difficult circumstances, you are doing everything you can so that children can learn, showing an exceptional commitment to professional duties and true courage. I would like to thank you for taking this stance.

Again, we have an integrated educational space throughout our country, and the high standards of excellence should be maintained everywhere, in all regions. The same applies to the infrastructure, which includes the construction of new buildings, the renovation and repairs of existing schools and other educational institutions, as well as the content of educational programmes, the quality of teaching, and enabling conditions for teachers’ professional growth.

I think you know this and see this at your workplaces: a great deal has been achieved, and I hope that you have noticed it. But there is certainly much to work on, too. I am sure that you, active and caring people that you are, have more ideas and proposals to share.

Once again, I would like to wish you all the best on your professional holiday, and congratulate you on your success in the professional competitions. Let’s move on to our work and share the ideas that you have in this regard.

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Vladimir Putin (commenting on Yekaterina Rumbakh’s remarks on raising the level of speech culture not only among students and the younger generation, but of the whole of society, as one of the most important foundations for preserving national identity): You have said that good speech is not only a sign of general intellectual development, but it is still one of the significant, even essential signs of a person’s intellectual development. Of course, this is also connected with national identity. How else? It is the native language, of course it is connected with national identity. There is no more vivid sign of national identity than mastery of one’s mother tongue.

Here, we need an entire complex of measures. Skills and love for reading, for discussing literature must be brought up. Of course, pressing buttons is also extremely important in today’s world in order to be successful, and for the country to be successful. It is necessary to master these digital methods to obtain knowledge, exchange knowledge, and achieve professional success, but speech culture is extremely important.

Let us think together what needs to be done additionally to put a book in the hands of a young person, so that they like reading and not just surf on the internet.

Clearly, we always say that everything – books, newspapers, paper, anything – is just a carrier, like a device. It is clear that this is just a carrier, but it is content that is important. It is one thing to hear about music, while ability to listen to music and understand it is completely different. It is one thing to hear about paintings by Vasily Polenov or Isaak Levitan, but the ability to see, feel, and understand what the artist wanted to say is completely different.

The same with literature. Of course, everyone must know letters, but you should also have taste for books, for holding a book in your hands; not just obtain information, but read into the author’s intonations and feelings. It is difficult to capture these feelings from gadgets, but this is important. It is important to be able to feel. Therefore, there should be a whole complex of measures.

We met with the Minister of Education [Sergei Kravtsov] yesterday at one of the sites and also touched on this topic in general. Think about it, please. The government is trying, and a lot has already been done in this respect. Of course, even more needs to be done, considering the latest development trends in education in our country, as well as throughout the world.

Of course, we must also take into account the conditions we live in, all those gadgets and the internet. We cannot disregard this. However, fundamental things must be among our priorities. I completely agree with you. Let us think together what else should be done.

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Vladimir Putin (responding to Yelena Reznik who shared the experience of a reading society in a gymnasium and suggested focusing specially on upgrading school libraries as spaces where socialising between adults and children is being cultivated): You are absolutely right, I totally agree with you.

Sometimes they say: those who think clearly, speak clearly, express their ideas clearly. This is only partially true – of course it is true, but only partially. One can stay with the computer all along and think very well in one’s special field of knowledge without being able to convey these thoughts to other people. That also happens.

Libraries, of course, should be modern and well-equipped, and they should also be a platform for socialising, that’s for sure. It should be a kind of club where conditions for socialising should be ensured.

In our newly-built schools – and I think we have already built 1,400 schools, and more than 400 schools are to be built by the end of the year – it is envisaged that after the construction is completed, the libraries should be filled with books and with specialists who know how to work with people and with books. This, of course, is the most important thing. We need to support libraries in general across the country, and even more so school libraries. We will definitely do this.

By the way, I would also ask the Ministry to pay attention to this when schools are being renovated. More than 4,000 schools have already been repaired, and there are more to be repaired. I have been to schools that have been renovated. It seems to me that their standard is very good, at least where I have visited. Clearly they try to show me the best, but still, after renovations these schools look completely different, just completely different. And it should be done there, of course, if it has not been done yet. I ask the Minister [of Education Sergei Kravtsov] to pay attention to this.

But the key is to pay attention to librarians, of course. They are very modest people, and their income levels are modest as well, whereas they are on a very important mission, extremely important.

Libraries need to be renewed. We have looked at what is happening in our so-called new territories – the LPR, the DPR, Novorossiya, the Kherson Region. I don’t know, there are probably colleagues from these regions present here as well – it’s a complete disaster there, as far as I can see. The previous authorities have never paid attention, but we must. Because this is, of course, a very important part of the education process, especially when it comes to young people, and a very important part of acquiring the necessary knowledge, including additional knowledge in the areas that young people select for themselves as the main ones and are guided to choose their future professions. It is utterly important for the school. I fully agree with you.

I once again ask the Minister to address this issue.

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Vladimir Putin (commenting on kindergarten teacher Nadezhda Vorontsova’s remarks, who praised the “Talking about Important Things” programme for schools and suggested extending this project to preschools for children from the age of five, who, in her opinion, are already capable of understanding how to love the Motherland, and much more): Of course, what we have done in schools (introducing the flag, the anthem, and “Talking about Important Things” lessons) is complementary to socially important subjects: History, Social Studies, and so on. This is a very timely thing we have done, and it has yielded good results. Because if we do not give guidance to young people in space and do not guide them in the endless flow of information, it is very hard for young people to find their bearings properly.

Unfortunately, and we used to talk a lot about this (now we are streamlining the relevant work), school textbooks used to report anything about the Second World War but there was almost no mention of the Battle of Stalingrad – it’s odd, you see, it’s just unbelievable. According to the latest data we, our country lost 27 million people during the Second World War, during the Great Patriotic War, and countries like Great Britain lost around 350,000 to 400,000. The entire Wehrmacht was concentrated on the Eastern Front, 80 percent in fact, but for some reason the Battle of Stalingrad was mentioned in passing in our school textbooks. What does such orientation in the information space lead to? Of course, if we are Ivans, not remembering kinship, we will never have a future. I have the impression that someone has been purposefully trying to raise and educate our new, rising generation in this way.

“Talking about Important Things” is a serious start to a big undertaking. It is important not to overdo anything here, you see. Nothing should be overdone, everything should be in the right amount. This is the first thing. Secondly, everything should be sincere, objective and clear.

We have such expressions: absorbed with mother’s milk, learnt from the cradle. This all suggests that at a very early age we should teach certain basic things to a child. But everything, I repeat, should be within reason.

Of course, we need to involve specialists, child psychologists to this work. We need to understand what a child is at the age of three, four or five. Somebody says at the age of five: I want to be a soldier, takes a toy gun and plays. Somebody behaves differently. But these are children, they have a certain level of development. We have to work with children based on this level of development. It’s a subtle and delicate matter.

You know, I have been doing martial arts all my life, and we used to say that the younger the child, the more experienced coach should work with him. It’s true, it’s such a subtle thing. Many of you have children of your own, so you know how little ones behave.

You have to match everything to their level of development, and everything has to be in the child’s best interest. But what I said about the expressions we have – to absorb something with mother’s milk – it shows that basic values, basic things should be taught to the youngest children in a careful, accessible way for such an age, linking it – I mean the concept of Motherland, country – with mum, with dad, with grandmother, with grandfather, with brother or sister, with younger or older children. You have to do it very carefully. But, of course, this is the right and very necessary work, and I certainly support you. Thank you for bringing this up, Ms Vorontsova.

<…>

Vladimir Putin (following up on a discussion about interaction between teachers, parents, families, and school, an issue raised by history and social studies teacher of Cossack Cadet classes Alexander Kondakov): You have raised this question, which means it is important and needs our attention. I think we are going to do just that.

Indeed, the process of upbringing and education cannot be effective without the family and the school working as a team. Remember Vladimir Vysotsky’s line, “What does family and school teach us?” Why family and school? There is a reason for that. We can achieve the effect that we have in mind only if we work on it together.

Without a doubt, fundamental values come from the family, but teachers, educators, and mentors can and should influence the family and parents as well, just like they should gather information about the environment the child is raised in, how the child feels living in a particular family, how they communicate as a family, and perhaps help parents build a proper relationship with the child in order to achieve the best results in the process of upbringing and help the child acquire the necessary knowledge.

Prior to this meeting with you – I will not hide it – I read background materials about the latest developments in this field. I just found out that our universities now offer an entire course on family communication, meaning communication with parents. This is a critically important area of focus. Without a doubt, advanced teacher training courses for educators who teach specific subjects also matter a lot.

I stand with you on this matter, and Mr Kravtsov [Minister of Education] hears us, so let’s do that. I agree with you.

Anyone else? Are we wrapping it up?

Once again, congratulations on the competition results. I would also like to congratulate you on your life choice which is the most important choice you will ever make. I am sure there could have been many more winners sitting in this audience, but we do not run that many competitions. However, we have many talented teachers who specialise in different subject matters.

Back in the day, you decided to become a teacher, an educator, or a mentor. This is a noble choice that matters a lot for the country and society. It is important, because this profession draws people who care about things and this profession is their calling, which is crucially important. If we enjoy what we do, we will certainly be successful. And I wish you that from the bottom of my heart.

Happy upcoming holiday! I wish you and your students all the best.