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Russian State Council to discuss education

The meeting will look into updating the system of general education in Russia

© Alexei Nikolsky/TASS

MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin will chair on Wednesday a meeting of the Russian State Council devoted to education.

The meeting will look into updating the system of general education in Russia. It will be the third time since 2001 that the Council will consider educational problems, the previous session on education held in 2006.

The State Council will discuss the state of general education in Russia and prospects for its development, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

"The theme is vast. Experts, regional representatives, our party leaders and the heads of parliamentary factions will take the floor," Peskov said.

The working group of the State Council led by the governor of Far Eastern Primorye region, Vladimir Miklushevsky, has prepared a report that puts an accent on a broad introduction of modern information technologies into the educational process. It also puts emphasis on the importance of distance learning in remote and under-filled schools. Much attention in the report will be paid to the construction of new schools.

According to the Ministry for Education and Science, the number of school students will grow in 2019-2020, which necessitates the construction by 2019 of new school buildings meeting all modern standards. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev pledged earlier that next year the government will finance the program for the construction and revamping of schools despite economic difficulties facing the country. A total of 50 billion roubles (about $702 million) are earmarked for the launch of the program.

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