VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
Opening remarks by Vladimir Putin:
Good afternoon, colleagues.
We meet regularly, but I think fewer people attended last time. But there are more students here today. I see. In any case, we talk regularly and discuss issues that concern all of us. The main issue here is the development of education, research and higher education in general, which should be tuned to the needs of society and the economy.
I would like to emphasise what we have discussed before: by 2020 we must build a chain of world class universities here in Russia. We are actively working on this now – I mean all our higher education institutions of course. You also know about the programmes that are being implemented, such as research universities, federal universities, and our two leading universities in Moscow and St Petersburg. I would like to return to their development and ask you to share your opinion on how they are progressing, and what else we should do to maintain that consistent progress.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that, in the past five years, we have doubled federal spending on higher education. Doubled in five years! And we also tripled the funding of civilian science. These are very objective and reliable figures.
As you know, the student allowance fund was increased by 9% as of September 1, 2011, so that universities controlled by the Education and Science Ministry are able to pay their students monthly benefits in addition to the general government allowance.
We need to take another step in this direction now. You must have read the plans published in the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily on Monday. So I would like to discuss some of them with you now, and to ask for your advice, and probably even for assistance. We must sit down together and work out a uniform approach to this issue. What did the article say? It said that we must significantly increase the allowance for freshman students. I know that many of those present here are skeptical and wary about this proposal, because assistants earn 5,000 roubles a month. But this is a very low income. And in any case, this should not prevent us from raising student allowance, under the pretext that assistants earn a very low income. They should have higher salaries. This is simply unacceptable. One cannot live on this.
As for the students – this is not a pre-election slogan. That is, although it did appear during the election campaign, this was a conscious decision and not some kind of charity. My idea is to build a so-called system of social mobility, a fair system which we do not currently have. This is clear and this is true.
Secondly, we must create an environment in which gifted young people from low-income families are able to reach their potential for their own benefit and for the benefit of the nation. If a new student has good potential and skills, but cannot afford to buy bread or butter or meat – excuse me, but that student will not be able to perform well in his studies. He will have to find a way to earn some money, and that will interfere with the learning process. And so, I have asked to meet with you here today to discuss how to go about doing all this.
What did I proceed from? In the first two, and in some cases three, years this young man or woman should receive the minimal amount of money that is sufficient to live on – about 5,000 roubles. But this only applies to those who study well, without any marks that are just passing. If they have these marks, then – sorry – you may get more than today’s 1,300 roubles, but not 5,000. So, these students receive 5,000 roubles per month during the first two or three years, and if they really spend their time studying, if they achieve good results, then – by their third or fourth year of study – they have an opportunity to receive higher student allowances or government and presidential scholarships or grants. Or they can also start working in small companies – we are developing a network of these at universities – or they can even work outside their place of study but still in their chosen professions. In this case, they do not stray from the process of their professional development but, on the contrary, are continuously upgrading their skills. This was the gist of the idea – to give students an opportunity to study properly and receive knowledge, to create conditions for students to mature and develop skills in their chosen professions. This is the first point I wanted to draw your attention to. This is what we must discuss today.
Second, universities primarily revolve around professors and teachers, and you understand this better than anyone else. The entire educational system relies on these people. We have got things a bit skewed here as we are trying to bring the average salaries of teachers in secondary schools to the average in the economy. University professors and teachers in 56 regions receive salaries that are below this average. We must correct this, obviously. We must change this drastically starting September 1. University salaries totalled 21,867 roubles per month last year, while the average in the national economy was 24,000 roubles. So, on the whole these salaries were lower – because of those several dozen regions that had lower-than-average figures.
But we need to do some more calculations here. I have some information on the salaries of university employees. I’m not sure what is meant by “employees”, though. Are they professors and teachers, which is one thing, or all people employed at universities, which is a different thing? I have asked the minister today to specify this. He will do this today and we will have precise data on professors’ and teachers’ salaries. But in any case, if their salaries are below the average in the economy, we must match it starting on September 1.
There are some problems that I’d like to draw your attention to in this context. As for the Ministry of Education and Science, this problem will be resolved at all of its universities. But we also have departmental universities. I have spoken to several ministers today – from the Transport Ministry, the Ministry of Healthcare, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Culture. I think the Ministry of Culture will have the biggest difficulties, and we will probably have to allocate additional funds to it from the budget. The problem is that this year’s budget does not provide for additional funds but I hope very much we will receive them during the budget implementation. In fact, the stipend funds also have not been included in the budget. Therefore, most likely we can start paying these 5,000 roubles next calendar year, beginning in January. Depending on whether we accrue any additional revenue, we may be able to start paying in September of this year. But I can’t publicly promise that as of yet. We can definitely start paying next calendar year. As for September, we need to wait and see. It depends on economic results. With regard to the faculty and staff salaries, the payments must start in September.
The Ministry of Education and Science is aware of this, it’s not a new issue, and the necessary resources are available. I will issue appropriate assignments to the relevant ministries and they will start preparing. But I would also like to discuss this with you, ladies and gentlemen. We all know (and you know this even better than I do) that when there were many fee-paying students, the number of instructors also increased dramatically to accommodate the number of students.
As the number of fee-paying students is decreasing, no staff restructuring is taking place. I am not calling for mass lay-offs, God forbid. But the size of the faculty should correspond to the number of students. And of course, the emphasis should be made on the very best. That was the first thing I wanted to mention.
Secondly, currently the ratio of faculty to staff in our universities is approximately 50/50, with auxiliary personnel accounting for 50% of the staff. This does not mean that we should start firing people immediately, God forbid. But we need to gradually streamline the situation. What’s the norm for the ratio of instructors to students?
Andrei Fursenko: The norm is one to ten.
Vladimir Putin: One to ten?
Andrei Fursenko: With the exception of several designated universities, the norm is one to ten.
Vladimir Putin: And currently we have five students to one instructor.
Andrei Fursenko: Yes, that’s the ratio in some places.
Remark: We have four to one.
Vladimir Putin: Yours is four to one? You see. The normal ratio is 10 students to one instructor, whereas now we often have four, or five to one. I just want you to think about this and move toward streamlining the situation.
The other issue I wanted to talk about today has to do with young instructors. As you know, we have been introducing a system of grants for researchers and instructors. One such programme is called Megagrants, under which a grant of up to 150 million roubles is given to an individual researcher, as opposed to a university or a research institute.
A laboratory is then created for the needs of the grant recipient and he or she can start working and attracting graduate students, senior students, etc. I have met with some of the grant recipients and had an opportunity to see how they work. It’s very interesting and people are really excited with what they are doing.
Half of all grant recipients are our former compatriots, who had left abroad and later returned to Russia. There are also many of those who never left. Some of them are foreigners, who live in Russia for months and not only in Moscow and St Petersburg, but also in provincial towns, including in Siberia. And, most importantly, all of them are quite satisfied with what they have.
So, the idea is to establish a similar grants programme for young instructors and researchers so that our young and talented specialists can work at universities across Russia. We will need to work together on this programme.
The government will need to make its contribution as well as the universities to support this programme. And, certainly, the regional authorities will need to help by providing housing and ensuring proper living conditions so that the young and promising instructors can start working without having to spend time and effort on dealing with ongoing and not very pleasant tasks.
And just briefly in conclusion… Of course, this falls under the competence of the ministry, and you have raised this issue yourself. I am referring to the so-called quasi universities. They need to be eliminated. Unfortunately, this continues to be a problem for our higher education system. I would like to request your assistance and ask you to work with the ministry in order to resolve this problem, not just formally, but in practice.
And finally, there one more topic, which is perhaps not very pleasant to those present here. Still it is widely known and discussed by the public, of which you are well aware. I am referring to the income gap between the management of the higher education institutions and the regular faculty and staff. I don’t want to impose anything here, nor do I want to dramatise things. I would like to ask Mr Sadovnichy (Viktor Sadovnichy, rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University) and other colleagues to share their views on this problem and suggest ways of dealing with it.
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Vladimir Putin’s closing remarks:
As for student stipends, they are really small. How much are they? 2,500 roubles? You have heard, and rectors know about this (it is now common knowledge), that there is a proposal to increase stipends for underclassmen to 5,000 roubles. This means that graduate students will also receive higher stipends. It is perfectly obvious that graduate students should not receive less than first-year students.
I have already spoken about student stipends starting with the next calendar year, and starting next academic year, January 1, we are planning to raise stipends for graduate students to up to 6,000 roubles, that is, several times over.
But starting with the next calendar year, when first-year students start receiving 5,000 roubles, stipends for graduate students must also increase. This is obvious.
Now I’d like to say a few words about the database for good ideas and channels of bringing them to their users. I have mentioned crowdsourcing in one of my articles. You know about it. Many of those present do. This is a very good idea and though we didn’t call it crowdsourcing we actually used it in passing a number of laws, for instance, the law on medicine, on the foundations of medicine. We have done this in our work on some other documents and with good results. All these documents are the result of compromises but they are acceptable to all participants in the process, which is also very important for subsequent implementation of these ideas, and this is why we will continue moving in this direction. This is the first point.
Second, your proposal could be advanced and implemented within the framework of the Strategic Initiatives Agency. I will tell Andrei Nikitin (Strategic Initiatives Agency director general) and he will get in touch with you. Please, talk with him by all means, okay?
And, finally, I’d like to speak about salaries of public sector employees. Do you understand what I’m driving at? Our average monthly wage in the country was a bit over 24,000 roubles last December. If we keep inflating state service salaries out of proportion, all our young people, all our graduates will seek to work in the government service sector. This is already our mainstream – everyone wants to get there in order to make money or get a sort of government rent. So, although we should increase public sector salaries, it is absolutely clear that they must correspond to the general wages of the population, otherwise we can make a mistake.
As for government employees going to work in private companies, I don’t see anything wrong with this, as long as it is a modern, interesting business. If people develop the economy and go to work in interesting companies, I don’t think this is a bad idea. The main thing is to enable people to fulfil their potential both in government service and in business. This is such an intricate issue, it depends on so many components – some want to make millions and billions, whereas for others it is enough to live a decent life, have an opportunity to buy good clothing, raise children, buy a car and build a house. The latter do not need billions to achieve this but need a decent salary. This is being achieved by the steady and gradual efforts of the entire society and correct government decisions. This is being achieved through evolution. Thank you very much. Goodbye.
