Experts consider the risk of dividing the Russian Ministry of Education and Science into two departments unlikely, but do not exclude such a scenario.
Over the past few weeks alone, personnel changes in the Ministry have led to the removal of two deputy ministers and two heads of departments, one of whom was relieved of his position along with three deputies.
According to some Interfax sources, in the near future another deputy minister from D. Livanov’s former team will suffer a similar fate. According to political scientists, such actions are aimed at changing the format of relations between the authorities and the scientific community.
Who left the walls of the ministry?
The department started on November 28 of this year with the resignation of Deputy Minister Alexei Lopatin by decree of the prime minister. He lasted in this position for a little more than three months, coming to the ministry a few days after the appointment of Olga Vasilyeva to the post of head of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. The reason for his resignation was his scientific career. According to the order of the Russian President, officials were prohibited from running for office in the Russian Academy of Sciences. A. Lopatin was elected academician in October.
On December 7, almost the entire leadership of the Department of Science and Technology (head Sergei Salikhov and his three deputies), which was supervised by A. Lopatin, resigned. On December 8, another division of the department was left without a leader - Grigory Andrushchak (Department of Strategy, Analysis and Forecast) left the ministry.
Who else might resign?
According to one of Interfax’s sources, in the near future a similar fate will befall Alexander Povalko, another deputy of O. Vasilyeva. Under the previous minister, he was responsible for the scientific direction. Later he dealt with financial issues.
Autumn personnel changes
Changes in the personnel composition of the ministry began in August, immediately after Olga Vasilyeva joined the department. During the fall, she made Andrei Emelyanov the new head of the information policy department instead of Anna Usacheva. Then Alexander Klimov, who oversaw issues of higher education, and Ekaterina Tolstikova, the deputy minister, resigned.
In contrast to the large number of resignations, only one appointment took place during the same period. Thus, on December 2, Irina Kuznetsova (a teacher of biology and chemistry by training) received the post of deputy minister. The corresponding order was signed by the Prime Minister.
Formation of a new department team
Current processes in the Ministry - the process of forming a team for the new Minister of Education. The process is “nothing supernatural,” says Alexey Makarkin, deputy head of the Center for Political Technologies.
He named the resignation of A. Lopatin and the situation in the Department of Science and Technology with mass layoffs as the only facts worthy of attention. He associates the second event with recently emerging rumors about the division of the department into two ministries - the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science. It is also possible to reform relations with the scientific community, which has long been dissatisfied with the policies of the Ministry of Education and Science against the backdrop of reform at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
According to A. Makarkin, the first scenario is unlikely, since the separation of departments is an extremely rare phenomenon, to which only the Ministry of Health has been subjected to today. Therefore, it is most likely that the course of relations with the scientific community will change.
The political scientist noted that this is confirmed by the dialogue between the head of state and the Russian Academy of Sciences, so no significant changes in the general line under the second scenario can hardly be expected.
Photo taken from the site http://schoolkor8.narod.ru.
On May 18, 2018, a new composition of the Government began its work in Russia. Most ministers continued their activities in the posts they held in the previous government, however, there were certain changes in the composition of the Cabinet. For example, the former Ministry of Education and Science was reformatted, as a result of which two departments were formed at once - the Ministry of Education, which was headed by the former Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva, as well as the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, which was joined by a new person who had not previously worked in the government . The new Minister of Education of Russia in 2018, who is this person, why exactly did he head the newly formed ministry.
With the start of the new government, it became clear that there would no longer be a single Ministry of Education. Instead, two new structures were established - the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. This division was approved by President Vladimir Putin at the suggestion of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, thus dividing the responsibilities of the departments. The first will be responsible for schools and secondary education, the second – for science, innovation and the activities of higher educational institutions.
According to Medvedev, the reorganization will make it possible to better concentrate the state’s capabilities to develop both education systems.
As experts note, the idea of uniting management of all levels of the educational system under the wing of one department turned out to be wrong. The result of such actions was a serious decline in the level of educational preparation in colleges and the widespread orientation of all students to receive exclusively higher education. Thus, changes in the management of the education system are long overdue.
At first glance, the division of a single department responsible for education looks like a return to the experience of the Soviet Union, when there were also several educational departments. However, in reality, the reorganization might have been required not at all because of the need to save Russian education and science, but simply in order to equally divide power between all lobbyists.
Practice clearly demonstrates that in Russia all sorts of changes in the Government do not have a fundamental impact on the policy pursued by the state. According to historian Evgeny Spitsyn, in the case of the division of the Ministry of Education, there is a struggle between various influence groups who want to gain control over certain areas of government and cash flows. There is a serious apparatus struggle going on, which is tied to a large number of interests and purely political motives.
Thus, in order to respect the interests of all pressure groups, it was decided that Olga Vasilyeva, against whom a serious campaign had been waged recently, would head the new Ministry of Education, since she was really better at working with the “school” block of secondary education, but representatives of the liberal block of influence received higher education and science at their mercy. The Ministry of Science and Higher Education was headed by Mikhail Kotyukov, who previously worked as the head of the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations.
Mikhail Kotyukov, who headed the newly formed Ministry of Science and Higher Education, was born in 1976 in Krasnoyarsk. He received his primary and secondary education at regular secondary school No. 68. Then he entered Krasnoyarsk State University, where he graduated with a degree in Finance and Credit.
It is believed that Kotyukov’s ticket to bureaucratic life was written by Valery Zubov, the former dean of Krasnoyarsk State University, who became the governor of the Krasnoyarsk region and invited Mikhail to work in the regional administration even before graduating from the university. After graduating from higher education, Mikhail Kotyukov received a promotion, becoming the head of the control and audit department of the Main Financial Directorate of the regional administration.
In 2001, Mikhail Kotyukov changed the civil service to private business, becoming the head of the financial department at OJSC Krasnoyarskagropromdorstroy. However, a year later he returned to the regional administration under the leadership of the new governor of the region, Alexander Khloponin. Kotyukov was accepted as the chief specialist of the department of resource analysis and budgetary policy of the Main Directorate of Economics and Planning. After another 2 years, Mikhail Mikhailovich sat in the chair of the deputy head of the Main Financial Directorate.
In 2007, after the scandalous poisoning of students at an honors ball, Kotyukov was included in the list of officials who left their posts. This version was discussed by Krasnoyarsk media, however, there was no evidence to confirm the connection of events. Another event that could have caused Kotyukov’s departure was an audit of the financial activities of the Krasnoyarsk Territory by the Accounts Chamber. As a result of the investigation, unreasonable expenses and debts to employees were discovered.
In March of the same year, Mikhail Kotyukov worked briefly at the Siberian Federal University to soon return to civil service in the regional administration.
In 2010, Kotyukov, a loyal member of Alexander Khloponin’s team, moved to the capital with his boss, becoming the head of the department of budget policy in the social sphere and science of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation.
In 2012, Kotyukov became deputy head of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, overseeing the financing of the social sector, including science. Since 2013, Mikhail Kotyukov became the head of the newly formed Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations (FANO).
In this position, Kotyukov was involved in developing principles for assessing the effectiveness of Russian scientific institutions, as well as inventorying the property of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Such interference in the affairs of the academy provoked a huge flow of negative criticism against Kotyukov. He was accused by RAS academicians of excessive bureaucracy and interference in scientific affairs.
In addition to his activities as head of FANO, Kotyukov was also involved in reforming the pension system and the work of the Olympstroy corporation, which was engaged in the construction of structures for the Sochi Olympics.
Thus, by the age of 41, Mikhail Kotyukov has a very extensive work list, which is replete with departures and returns of the new Minister of Education of Russia in 2018 to the public service. Whether this is good or bad, only time will tell. As the experience of the previous government shows, Kotyukov has every chance of staying in the civil service for another 6 years.
"It's finally happened!" - this is how the Director of the International Institute of New States, Alexey Martynov, began his commentary to Morning on the reshuffles in the Ministry of Education, and not only almost every education and science worker in the country, but also the vast majority of Russians, is ready to subscribe to these words of his. At the very least, the results of VTsIOM surveys assessing the government’s performance showed that people consider Dmitry Livanov, who was fired today, to be the worst minister in Medvedev’s cabinet and would welcome his resignation.
New Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva. Photo: MGGEU website
As Martynov noted, “the negative rating that Livanov had has probably not been enjoyed by any government minister in recent history.” The education reform he carried out was monstrously unpopular. “Although not everything in it was negative,” the expert notes, it was crude, inaccurate, in some places even incompetent, and most importantly, it was completely inconsistent with the goals and objectives that were set by the country’s leadership for the education system for the training of specific specialists in specific areas."
Livanov’s resignation became known after Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told the president: “We are now implementing a number of new priority areas in the format of this particular project work - in various areas, including education. In order to bring it to life those ideas that have been formulated require new approaches, new powers, and in some cases new people,” the head of government reported to Vladimir Putin. The President did not object.
As for the new minister, this “is not just the movement of a person from one department to another,” Martynov emphasizes. “Vasilieva, one might say, is a person brought up by the education system, a person who went through all the levels in it, had experience teaching at school, worked in academic environment, knowing all its problems."
Indeed, Olga Vasilyeva began her work biography as a teacher, then, having received a candidate’s and then a doctor’s degree, she worked at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where the main area of her research was the history of the Russian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century, the problem of the relationship between the church and states, religion and politics; church and foreign policy; problems of religious and political extremism. The new minister, who has devoted 36 years of her life to education, has 160 scientific papers and 8 monographs in her luggage.
She was a member of the Council for Coverage of Religious Topics in Electronic Media under the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Press, Television and Radio Broadcasting and Mass Communications; is a member of the Council for the preparation of programs for the course "Domestic History" under the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.
“Olga Vasilyeva is an insider in the pedagogical and scientific community; she is an excellent expert and knows all the problems of this area from the inside; she is distinguished by the highest efficiency,” Pavel Zenkovich, head of the Presidential Office for Public Projects, whose deputy Vasilyeva has worked since 2013, told TASS .
“This is not just administrative work, but work in a body that ensures the activities of the head of state, and a direct contract with the first person. Therefore, this is a very precise appointment, although perhaps unexpected for some,” Martynov noted. According to him, “not only the country’s leadership, but also the entire society has great hopes for the new minister.”
In particular, according to political scientist and sociologist of religion Alexander Shchipkov, the dialogue between the state and the church will acquire a “more meaningful” character with Vasilyeva’s appointment.
But the main thing is that “the education reform, undoubtedly, with its advent will be revised and brought into line with the tasks facing the education system, because we are talking about our children, our people, about vocational education - about those specialists who we need in the first place.” turn, our economy, our economy, our society. And not this story with commercialization, with the Bologna system. We will move away from the monetization of education to solving specific problems," Martynov is convinced.
It should be noted that even after becoming, in fact, an official, Vasilyeva continues to teach, including on a voluntary basis - her lectures enjoyed constant success among participants in the “Candidate” election forum organized by United Russia.
The new minister herself outlined her priorities as follows: “The main task is to take care of teaching, since the teacher is the main person in the education process... I myself am a teacher. So, it is the Teacher with a capital T - our future depends on him, because today children, tomorrow - people. This is a priority for me. The second thing is to comprehend everything that has been done: take the best that could be taken and progressively move forward. We have a wonderful experience of more than one generation and even more than one century," - Vasilyeva said in an interview with Kommersant FM.
Experts consider the risk of dividing the Russian Ministry of Education and Science into two departments unlikely, but do not exclude such a scenario.
Over the past few weeks alone, personnel changes in the Ministry have led to the removal of two deputy ministers and two heads of departments, one of whom was relieved of his position along with three deputies.
According to some Interfax sources, in the near future another deputy minister from D. Livanov’s former team will suffer a similar fate. According to political scientists, such actions are aimed at changing the format of relations between the authorities and the scientific community.
Who left the walls of the ministry?
The department started on November 28 of this year with the resignation of Deputy Minister Alexei Lopatin by decree of the prime minister. He lasted in this position for a little more than three months, coming to the ministry a few days after the appointment of Olga Vasilyeva to the post of head of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. The reason for his resignation was his scientific career. According to the order of the Russian President, officials were prohibited from running for office in the Russian Academy of Sciences. A. Lopatin was elected academician in October.
On December 7, almost the entire leadership of the Department of Science and Technology (head Sergei Salikhov and his three deputies), which was supervised by A. Lopatin, resigned. On December 8, another division of the department was left without a leader - Grigory Andrushchak (Department of Strategy, Analysis and Forecast) left the ministry.
Who else might resign?
According to one of Interfax’s sources, in the near future a similar fate will befall Alexander Povalko, another deputy of O. Vasilyeva. Under the previous minister, he was responsible for the scientific direction. Later he dealt with financial issues.
Autumn personnel changes
Changes in the personnel composition of the ministry began in August, immediately after Olga Vasilyeva joined the department. During the fall, she made Andrei Emelyanov the new head of the information policy department instead of Anna Usacheva. Then Alexander Klimov, who oversaw issues of higher education, and Ekaterina Tolstikova, the deputy minister, resigned.
In contrast to the large number of resignations, only one appointment took place during the same period. Thus, on December 2, Irina Kuznetsova (a teacher of biology and chemistry by training) received the post of deputy minister. The corresponding order was signed by the Prime Minister.
Formation of a new department team
Current processes in the Ministry - the process of forming a team for the new Minister of Education. The process is “nothing supernatural,” says Alexey Makarkin, deputy head of the Center for Political Technologies.
He named the resignation of A. Lopatin and the situation in the Department of Science and Technology with mass layoffs as the only facts worthy of attention. He associates the second event with recently emerging rumors about the division of the department into two ministries - the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science. It is also possible to reform relations with the scientific community, which has long been dissatisfied with the policies of the Ministry of Education and Science against the backdrop of reform at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
According to A. Makarkin, the first scenario is unlikely, since the separation of departments is an extremely rare phenomenon, to which only the Ministry of Health has been subjected to today. Therefore, it is most likely that the course of relations with the scientific community will change.
The political scientist noted that this is confirmed by the dialogue between the head of state and the Russian Academy of Sciences, so no significant changes in the general line under the second scenario can hardly be expected.
Photo taken from the site http://schoolkor8.narod.ru.
The new Minister of Education and Science (Ministry of Education and Science) Olga Vasilyeva, who came to the department from the presidential administration, began to change the team that was assembled by the former head of the department Dmitry Livanov. As two sources in the Ministry of Education and Science told RBC, the minister announced personnel decisions during a working meeting. According to one of the interlocutors, the meeting took place on August 29.
The new minister dismissed three deputies and three heads of departments from their positions. Thus, deputies Alexander Klimov, Ekaterina Tolstikova and Alexander Povalko were fired. They oversaw the most important areas of the ministry’s work - in particular, competitive procedures, information policy, personnel policy, property, financial issues, etc.
The heads of leading departments also lost their posts - the information policy department Anna Usacheva, the property department Alexander Kharchenko, the department of civil service, personnel and business management Vladimir Golubovsky and the department of state policy in the field of education of children and youth Alexander Stradze.
All deputies or heads of departments, except Stradze, are still listed as heads on the website of the Ministry of Education and Science. “She fired Stradze first, then the people who were responsible for important areas of the ministry’s work were fired - PR, property issues and personnel,” says the interlocutor. Another RBC interlocutor at the ministry says that by firing Stradze, Vasilyeva reassigned youth policy issues to herself.
There are no replacements for the new deputies yet. Instead of Usacheva, the head of the minister’s press service will be Andrei Emelyanov, who previously worked in the public projects department of the presidential administration, says one of RBC’s interlocutors. This department is headed by Pavel Zenkovich, whose deputy was Vasilyeva before her appointment on August 19.
In Zenkovich’s management, as sources in the presidential administration told RBC, Vasilyeva oversaw issues related to the implementation of public projects in the field of education. She gave lectures on conservatism in United Russia, including at internal party seminars organized by the Kremlin’s internal political bloc, and also worked on the concept of teaching history and the Russian language in schools.
Vasilyeva also actively participated in organizing youth projects and interacting with religious organizations, a source close to the Ministry of Education and Science tells RBC. In particular, Vasilyeva organized the Tavrida youth forum in Crimea, in which Vladimir Putin took part this year.
Before the presidential administration, Vasilyeva worked in the government department of culture. Her scientific specialization is the history of the Russian Orthodox Church in the twentieth century. At RANEPA, Vasilyeva is the head of the department of state-confessional relations. Before the administration, she worked in the government apparatus.
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