Because of Teacher Shortage, Russia’s Educators Could Speak Out with Little Risk of Repression, Chernyshov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Feb. 9 – Most Russian liberals and many in the West believe that teachers in the Russian Federation do not protest against the war or speak out against other official policies because they lack of tradition of doing so and fear that they will face repression if they go against the state, Sergey Chernyshov says.
    But in fact, the Russian scholar who now works at the University of Bochum in Germany says, if teachers do speak out collectively, they are unlikely to face sanctions from the authorities, although if they do so individually, the risks may be higher (themoscowtimes.com/2025/02/05/russias-education-system-is-capable-of-resistance-when-they-want-to-be-a87874).
    The reason for that, Chernyshov continues, is that Russia faces a serious teacher shortage; and officials don’t want to fire or otherwise punish educators lest they be forced to try to come up with replacements in the middle of the academic year. – a conclusion he draws from a case where teachers in a Altai school and nothing happened to them.
    Other teachers and perhaps those in other fields where there are critical shortages of personnel should take note of this reality and be ready to protest given that these shortages are a real political resource and one that if used carefully will force the powers that be to back down or even make concessions.  
    Unfortunately, Chernyshov says, that reality is something that neither the Putin regime nor the Russian opposition want to recognize, the former because it doesn’t want to admit that it would back down and the latter because it is far more comfortable insisting that Russian teachers and others obey because of the fear of punishment.