MOSCOW, December 31 (Itar-Tass) —— Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a federal law On Education in the Russian Federation, the Kremlin press service reported on Monday.
The law was passed by the Russian State Duma lower parliament house on December 21, 2012, and approved by the Federation Council upper house on December 26, 2012.
The new law states that monthly wages for school teachers cannot be lower than an average monthly salary in a particular region and classes in Russia’s national languages may not infringe upon Russian language classes.
The law provides for equal access to educational organizations of various forms of ownership offering high-quality educational services, to the educational infrastructure and to state and municipal financing of the educational sphere.
The document is geared to modernize the system of vocational training. Secondary professional education will offer programs of two levels, i.e. training of highly-qualified workers (servants), and training technologists.
The law fixes the following levels of general education: pre-school education, primary school education, general education, and secondary school education. Under the law, there is one level of professional education, that is secondary professional education. The levels of higher education are Bachelor’s programs; higher education – specialist programs, Master’s programs; higher education – advanced training programs.
The law awards the status of “leading classical universities” to the Moscow Lomonosov State University and the St. Petersburg State University. These two universities will enjoy the right to develop and adopt educational standards of any higher education level and to establish their own educational or qualification certificates to their graduates.
The law established various types of scholarships, such as state academic and state social grants to students; state grants to post-graduates, resident doctors, and probationers’ president’s and government’s grants; personal grants; grants appointed by legal entities or individuals; grants to students of preparatory departments in cases specified by the law.
Teachers and lecturers are granted the right to undergo additional professional training at least once every three years.
The administration of educational establishments will have the right to introduce school uniform, and kindergarten services are to be paid by the municipal authorities.
The law is to enter into force from September 1, 2013, with the exception of a number of provisions, for which different timeframes are established.
The new basic document in the field of education is to replace two outdated laws "On Education" and "On Higher and Postgraduate Vocational Education", which were adopted in 1992 and 1996, respectively.