Moscow to Re-Introduce Common Textbooks for All Schools over Next Three Years

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 27 – The educational authorities in Moscow have announced that they will be introducing common textbooks for all schools in the Russian Federation over the next three years, thus restoring the system that existed in Soviet times and re-creating “a common educational space.”

            Most teachers with whom Vzglyad spoke favor the plan, even though it will also require the retraining of a large number of teachers to ensure that they use the new textbooks in exactly the same way that all other teachers in Russian schools are required to do (vz.ru/society/2025/5/27/1334666.html).

            Not only will this make it easier for children whose families move from one federal subject to another, the advocates of this plan say; but it will help overcome differences between rural schools and urban ones. What they don’t say is what this shift will mean for schools in non-Russian areas.

            And that is likely to be critical: if educational officials in all the republics of the Russian Federation are required to use exactly the same textbooks, that will likely be the death knell for any ethnic distinctiveness and make it even easier for the central government to reduce still further the use of non-Russian languages in schools.