Russia Suffering Massive Teacher Shortage, Forcing Schools to Expand Class Size, Reintroduce Second and Even Third Shifts, and Harming Quality of Education

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 11 – Russia is suffering from an increasing shortage of teachers because of low salaries and poor working conditions, new studies find. There are now 250,000 vacancies forcing schools to expand class size, reintroduce second and even third shifts, and harming the quality of education Russian children receive.
    The studies find that these shortages are widespread with schools in three out of four of the country’s federal subjects now unable to fill all teaching positions and many reporting that teachers now employed are hoping to leave if they can find a better job (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/11/11/mne-by-prosto-vyzhit-v-etom-uchebnomu-godu).
    In 2018, Putin promised to end second and third shifts in Russia’s schools and to boost teacher salaries. Salaries have gone up slightly but not kept up with inflation, and “shifts” have been eliminated only by using other words to describe schedules that often mean children in poorer regions in the North Caucasus and the Arctic don’t get home until well after dark.
     This crisis has not received a great deal of attention but it merits more than many other issues that do because if the quality of primary and secondary education falls because of the tactics Russian schools are forced to adopt given the shortage of teachers, it will affect the quality of pupils going onto higher education and into the workforce.