Thousands of schoolchildren were left without teachers

 Source: https://verstka.media/mobilizaciya-uchiteley-voyna-i-obrazovanie/

“Thousands of schoolchildren were left without teachers”: how the war hits education

Since the beginning of mobilization, the shortage of teachers has sharply increased - teachers go to the front or emigrate

The call of men to the front and the refusal of the authorities to give reservations to school teachers paralyze the educational process, teachers told Layout. Avoiding the agenda, people hide (they stop communicating) or emigrate, and both teachers and teachers leave. In some schools, 80% of the teaching staff left, somewhere - all the teachers of the Olympiad mathematics. Private schools are on the verge of closing. Parents and students are trying to save the situation by writing collective statements to the authorities with a request not to take teachers to war.

80% of teachers left the school

Andrei (not his real name), 39, is a physics teacher at a private school in St. Petersburg. On the night of September 25, he crossed the border between Russia and Georgia on foot.

“We, the teachers, stayed in Russia after February 24 in order to prepare the children. After all, when the regime changes, all this will fall on their shoulders. But I am a reserve officer, although I did not serve, I had a military department. And although the summons did not come to me, I did not take risks, because the system can grind an infinite number of people, ”says the teacher.

According to him, 80% of the teaching staff have also left the school or are planning to leave in the near future - two out of five teachers and many teachers who will follow their husbands. Therefore, the issue of closing or relocating the school is already being discussed .

“In addition to teachers, we have a large tutor staff, half of them are young guys who have the first category of validity on their military ID. One of them did not come to work on September 21 and hid. The rest are also going to either leave or hide, ”says Andrei.

According to him, this year there was a very large enrollment of children in their school, as the demand for private schools increased due to the planting of patriotism in public schools. But now parents and children are also leaving.

"Scare every call at the door"
So did a young English teacher from the Yamalo-Nenets district, Dmitry (not his real name), when it became known that the school would not make reservations for teachers. According to him, by the time of departure, three school employees had been mobilized.

Dmitry admits that due to his absence, a huge amount of work will fall on other teachers . But he decided that he had no alternative. “I felt insecure, in recent days I was frightened by every call at the door, I expected that it would be worse, and I was afraid that in this case I would not be able to leave,” says Dmitry.

Immediately after the announcement of "partial mobilization", there were reports that teachers were handed summons right at school . For example, as Nestka told, a history teacher from the Kamchatka village of Kozyrevsk was handed a summons in front of the whole class, where his wife also taught.

Merit in education is no reason for delay
They take away not only ordinary teachers, but also “honored ones”. In September, Miras Ishdavletov, a teacher from Ufa, won a prize at the All-Russian Competition for Teachers of the Native Language and Native Literature. On September 27, he received the title of Honored Teacher of the Republic of Bashkortostan. But  a day later he was mobilized . A pregnant wife and several outstanding loans remained at home.

“He did not hide when he received the summons, they thought maybe it was a mistake because he had no combat experience,” says the teacher’s wife, Irina Ishdavletova. But they took him away. Nobody helped. I am deeply offended that this is done with highly qualified personnel. We registered a marriage in the summer, we are expecting a child. I'm going on maternity leave soon. We both have mortgages, in the summer we took a car loan. And now I'm the only one to carry it all. I just don't know how."

According to Irina, her husband was registered as a volunteer, the military enlistment office says that he himself wanted to fight . Although she is sure that he could not do this and leave her in such a difficult position.

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“Entire items disappear from the schedule”
The head of the Uchitel trade union, Yuri Varlamov, says that in some schools the situation has become critical - there is simply no one to teach.

“In many schools, up to 100-120 teaching hours a week have been released, there is no one to replace people . Sometimes entire items disappear from the schedule. The overall picture is not yet clear. Although the fact that she will be sad is clear now. In a situation of systematic overload of teachers and their work at 1.5–2 rates, there will be no one to replace the clock. New teachers will not come to schools either,” says Varlamov.

The trade union "Teacher" appealed to the president and the government with a request to grant teachers a respite from mobilization (the document is at the disposal of the editors). “Since the beginning of the partial mobilization, dozens of schools have lost their male teachers, including principals. Thousands of schoolchildren were left without teachers. There is no one to replace them,” the union members write.

Children protecting teachers
Since the beginning of the mobilization, a new type of appeal to officials has appeared - collective letters from children and parents with a request to give a respite to the teacher. Appeals are drawn up so that propagandists can pick them up - that is, the actions of the authorities and the “special operation” are not condemned in them.

So, at the end of September, on behalf of the students of 11 "B" Lyceum No. 4 in Pskov, under the post of the head of the region, they wrote that the students "fully support the actions of the President and the Government of the Russian Federation to protect the inhabitants of Donbass" , but ask for a delay for their history teacher Ilya Kazantsev.

“We are sure that our teacher will be ashamed of our appeal to you, since he is a real man and is ready to take part in hostilities <...> We believe that his military post is a teacher's field <...> At the teacher's table, he will win more victories bringing love and patriotism for the motherland to the masses,” the appeal reads.

The editor-in-chief of Russia Today, Margarita Simonyan, drew attention to this, and soon reported that the teachers were “returned to school.”

A similar appeal was published in the comments on the telegram channel of the speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin. In it, 11th grade students of Moscow school No. 1788 ask for a deferment for the teacher of mathematics and computer science Aidar Akhmetshin. At the end of the appeal, there is a postscript: “We fully agree and support the decision of the President of the Russian Federation, but we believe that it is contrary to the interests of our Motherland to separate such personnel from the educational process and the training of IT specialists.”

“When I read the appeal, where children support the war, I was horrified ,” the mother of a Moscow schoolboy told Layout. His class teacher had also received a summons, and now their class was in a similar situation. According to her, students and parents are simply forced to write and speak in this way to help their teacher. But that, she says, doesn't mean they really think so.

Critical situation
In early August, Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov reported that schools were ready for the start of the new academic year and "all vacancies are closed as much as possible." But according to the RANEPA, in the whole country there is a shortage of 3% of teachers. And last year, in its study, the academy noted that Russian schools lacked 250,000 teachers.

The problem is also recognized by the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Education, Yana Lantratova. According to her, she receives dozens of messages about the mobilization of teachers every day . Therefore, she turned to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu with a request to grant a deferment from the draft for elementary and secondary school teachers.

“Schools, our children really need teachers,” Lantratova told Nestka. - They are already sorely lacking, especially men. A male teacher at school is worth its weight in gold!

However, her appeal, as well as the appeal of the "Teacher" trade union, still remain unanswered.

Illustrations: Vanessa Gavrilova (Instagram:  @vnssstr )

Yulia Akhmedova