Paul Goble
Staunton, July 24 – Russia’s demographic decline is now hitting public education, with officials reporting that there will be 346,700 fewer pupils in the first four grades of the country’s public schools this year than last and that their number will continue to fall for the next several years at least.
Russian officials insist that this decline reflects only the falloff of births in the 1990s and that it has a silver lining in that it will reduce the country’s teacher shortage given that approximately 17,000 teachers will be needed (iz.ru/1925422/valeriia-mishina/shkolnye-kody-desiatki-tysiach-uchitelei-mogut-ostatsia-bez-raboty).
In fact, the decline in children reflects the economic difficulties and social and political uncertainties which have depressed the birthrate in the last decade of the Putin era and the consequences of the decline in the number of pupils will likely prompt Moscow to close more schools and displaced teachers won’t find other jobs (nakanune.ru/articles/123765/).
The response of the Putin elite to this situation and other evidence of demographic decline is symptomatic of the Kremlin’s approach, one that may sound good but is unlikely to have any positive impact even though it will suggest to many that Putin and his regime are finally paying attention to a problem they have played down.
Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the Federation Council says that the Russian government has created “a demographic spetsnaz” to address a broad range of demographic problems including low birthrates while preserving “the traditional values” the Kremlin and the population want (kommersant.ru/doc/7909473).
She provides no details but it seems likely that this “special assignment force” will not put more money into the hands of the population or improve their views about what the future is likely to bring – and that the chief beneficiaries of this effort will be the officials who take part rather than the Russians the Kremlin would like to see having more children.
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