EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE
AND EDUCATION:
REPORT OF THE
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
WCECCE/Ref. 6
Early Childhood Care and Education
National report
Russian Federation
The Russian Federation Preschool
System State and Development
The document is prepared by the Ministry of Education and Science
of the Russian Federation
for the World UNESCO Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education,
September 27-29, 2010, Moscow,
Russian Federation
REPORT
on the Russian Federation preschool
system state and development
1. The state education policy in the sphere of preschool education.
The basic principles of the Russian education system development are:
 openness to public needs and demands of the age;
 involvement of the society into the active dialogue and direct
participation in education control, and education reforms;
 introduction of modern educational technologies;
 provision of accessible high-quality education for all citizens of
Russia.
To provide accessible high-quality education it is very important for every
child to have equal basic opportunities to study in primary school. To create equal
basic opportunities means to reach the appropriate level of every preschool child
development before they start studying at school. The harmonious development of
preschool children, adequate to their age and individual abilities will help them to
succeed in school. That is why to access equal basic opportunities is one of the
priorities of preschool development in the Russian Federation. It is impossible to
achieve without a flexible, multifunctional system of preschool education, which
can ensure the constitutional right of each citizen of the Russian Federation to
universal and free-of-charge preschool education.
The importance and significance of preschool education, well understood by
the representatives of the state and local government authorities, are determined by
the following. Only preschool education gives a preschooler an opportunity to find
their identity in the society of their peers, therefore achieving the necessary level of
social and personal development and getting the skills of social adaptation
Furthermore, the preschool education allows children to master specific types of
infant activities, i.e. games, construction, creative activities, observation and
experimentation. Properly organized infant activities help to form basic personal
qualities of a preschooler (thinking, memory, attention, imagination and speech).
These are the qualities that let a child to study any program successfully, to master
any information in primary school and at the following steps of education.
Moreover, the preschool education system is considered today as one of the
factors of strengthening and preserving health, as well as improving demographic
situation in the Russian Federation. From this perspective, it is impossible to
improve birth rate without providing Russian citizens, women in particular, with
solid social guarantees that their little child will get a place in a preschool
educational institution (DOU), so that a woman-mother could, upon the expiry of
her maternity leave, in accordance with her wishes, return to the full-fledged
professional activity. In order to fulfill the demographic tasks, preschool education
system should become generally accessible, and a child should be provided with a
place in a preschool educational institution within a realistic time period.
Russian Federation has a legalized distribution of powers in the sphere of
preschool education, according to which organization of generally accessible
education is the responsibility and competence of municipalities, local
government authorities.
Russian Federal entities are responsible for developing regional programs
of education development, including preschool education, ensuring equal budget
provision of municipal bodies, so that they could exercise the powers vested in
them. Russian Federation provides the development of state policy in the sphere
of preschool education, as well as legal and regulatory support of the education
system functioning.
To coordinate activities of the preschool education system developing in
accordance with the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation and the
Government of the Russian Federation and subject to the decisions of the
Presidium of the President’s Council of the Russian Federation regarding
implementation of national priority projects and demographic policy a “Package of
Measures on the Development of Preschool Education in the Russian Federation
for 2007-2010” (hereinafter “the Package of Measures”) were formulated. In June
2007 the Government of the Russian Federation directed to the federal executive
bodies and the executive bodies of the Russian Federation subjects an instruction
on implementation of the Package of Measures.
In accordance with the division of powers in the sphere of preschool
education, the Package of Measures provides for a series of activities aimed at
development of preschool education at all levels - federal, regional and municipal in two principal directions: ensuring preschool education accessibility and quality.
At the federal level, the preschool education system activity is regulated by
the Law of the Russian Federation “On Education”, the “Model Provisions on
Preschool Education Establishments” and other regulatory documents.
2. The state of preschool education system in the Russian Federation.
The principal feature of the preschool education system of the Russian
Federation is that it is represented by a network of educational institutions of
different types and kinds. While forming the network of preschool institutions the
State, acting in the name of government authorities of all levels, tries to take into
consideration the peculiarities of children and satisfy the demands of their parents
to the utmost.
The basic structural unit, in which children get preschool education, is a
group of preschool age children. The groups have different focuses: general,
compensatory, combined and health-improving – in order to account for different
peculiarities of children.
The activities of general groups aim at harmonious and all-round
development of all children.
The compensatory groups are created for children with disabilities. The main
aim of the activities of such groups is the skilled correction of the shortcomings in
their physical and (or) mental development and preschool education for disabled
children.
Health-improving groups are created for children with tuberculous
intoxication, sickly children and other categories of children in need of special
care. In these groups children receive preschool education, as well as undergo a set
of sanitary and hygienic, preventive and curative measures and procedures.
In combined groups healthy and disabled children, including handicapped
children, study together.
The groups of preschool age children can work full day (10.5-12 hours),
shortened day (8-10 hours), prolonged day (14 hours), 24 hours or short day (3-5
hours). Such different attendance schemes are connected with the peculiarities of
the children themselves, as well as with the demands of their families. The full day
kindergartens are of the greatest demand among parents, where during 10-12 hours
children are looked after, taken care of and provided with preschool education,
while their parents are at work.
During their staying in a kindergarten, children are fed 3-5 times a day
(depending on the duration of their stay), have a nap and obligatory walk.
Following the program, implemented in the institution, early childhood teachers
and other specialists give classes, play with children, walk, and lead excursions.
Classes touch upon a variety of areas, covering various educational spheres
and are aimed at physical, artistic and aesthetic, cognitive and speaking, social and
personal development of children.
Walks in kindergartens are organized in such a way that in the course of
them various types of children’s activities - cognitive, physical, and artistic - are
developed. During walks early childhood teachers organize the observation of
animate and inanimate nature phenomena, children’s work in the open (for
example, in the kitchen garden or flower bed), and various games. Children build
something of sand, construction kits, cubes; they draw with coloured chalks; they
mould things out of clay, make something of natural material. During any walk
special attention is paid to children’s physical development, organization of
various outdoor games.
Educational component plays a very important role in children’s
development, which is directed towards developing hygiene habits, positive
attitude to work, tolerance to the people around, patriotic upbringing.
Depending on the groups focus and children’s age, all preschool educational
institutions are divided into 8 categories: kindergarten, kindergarten for children of
early age (from 2 months to 3 years), kindergarten for children of senior preschool
age (from 5 to 7 years), combined kindergarten, compensatory kindergarten, care
and health improvement kindergarten, general kindergarten with priority given to
one of the children’s development lines; child development centre – kindergarten.
Groups of preschool age children may be organized in educational
institutions of other types (besides preschool ones): in general education
institutions, in educational institutions for preschool and primary school age
children, in institutions of additional education for children. Preschool groups may
be organized in cultural and social purpose institutions, if necessary.
At present in the Russian Federation preschool education is provided in
about 57 thousand preschool institutions of different types and forms, 43.3
thousand of them are kindergartens of different kinds. More than 5.3 mln. children
are being educated in preschool institutions at the moment.
Besides, preschool education in Russia is characterized by its combination
with taking care of and looking after children. In this respect a very important point
in taking care of and looking after children is medical care for children in
preschool institutions. As in preschool age physical development and health are
closely connected with mental development of children, every preschool institution
has a nurse, whose duties include everyday preventive examination of children,
prophylactic immunization, first aid treatment – if necessary, control over healthy
nutrition organization, communication with educators and children’s families upon
the matters of developing health behavior patterns. Besides a nurse, at least once a
week a children’s clinic doctor examines children in preschool institutions, twice a
year children undergo preventive examination by all children’s clinic specialists:
pediatrician, neurologist, orthopedist, speech therapist, ophthalmologist and others.
Each health worker in preschool institutions is responsible on average for 90
children of preschool age. As a comparison, a district nurse in a children’s clinic is
responsible for about 600 children (from the day of birth till the age of 14 years).
Healthcare component is especially important in the activity of
compensatory preschool institutions. One of the functions of these institutions is to
provide early medical care to children and to correct the shortcomings of their
physical and mental development. We have kindergartens for children with speech
development disorders, where every day skilled speech therapists and
psychologists work with every child; kindergartens for children with eyesight
disorders, where children get assistance of visual impairment specialists and
ophthalmologists; kindergartens for children with muscular and skeletal disorders,
where children get medical help of orthopedists, undergo massage therapy and
everyday physical therapy. There are also kindergartens for children with other
disabilities. To effect health-improving work, these kindergartens have medical
personnel and all the necessary conditions.
It shall be noted that health-improving work in pre-school institutions is
harmonically combined with pre-school education. Children receive not only
medical assistance but also development appropriate to their age, which will enable
them to be successful in the future education.
The educational process in pre-school institutions is being conducted by 590
thousand educators including pre-school teachers and senior pre-school teachers,
music teachers, physical training teachers, educational psychologists, teachersspeech-therapists, and teachers of additional education. In the average there are ten
pupils of pre-school institutions for one educator. As a rule, educators have
professional education or are combining educational work with studying to get
professional education.
The conditions of providing pre-school education as well as looking after
and caring for children in pre-school institutions are governed by the sanitary and
epidemiological rules and regulations including the requirements for the building,
its lightening and heating, equipment (including the requirements for children
furniture), outdoors playgrounds, organization of children's nutrition. Thus, the
standard land plot area shall be not less than 29 square meters per 1 child and not
less than half of that area shall be planted. Also 1-2 sports grounds shall be
arranged at the territory of a kindergarten.
The rooms for playing and for sleeping shall have the area of not less than 50
square meters. With that the group room shall be equipped with a wash-room and a
lavatory. Each pre-school institution has music and sports rooms; the institutions
which have been constructed since 1990s have swimming pools. Group rooms
where the children spend more than 50% of their time in a kindergarten are divided
into:
 a hall with individual cloth lockers;
 a room for playing where the children play and have classes;
 a room for sleeping where the children sleep during the day and in the
all-day groups also during the night.
An appropriate atmosphere is being created in all group rooms, music and
sports rooms, in the cabinets of psychologists, speech therapists, defectologists and
other specialists. The furniture (tables, chairs, beds) is selected in accordance with
the height of the children, the toys are chosen so as to please both boys and girls, to
develop constructional and artistic skills, organize didactic and story games.
There are state mechanisms for determining the conformity of the conditions
created in pre-school institutions to the established requirements as well as for
determining the state status of a pre-school institution, of its type and kind. These
are the mechanisms of licensing and state accrediting. They allow to control the
quality of the provided services, both educational and medical.
The content of the pre-school education is determined by the basic and
additional educational programmes. The requirements to the main educational
program, which is the obligatory minimum of the pre-school education, are
determined at the federal level. The Ministry of Education and Science of the
Russian Federation adopted the federal state requirements to the structure of the
basic general educational programme of the pre-school education. The federal
requirements state the content of education that any pre-school institution shall
provide for every child to develop harmonically in accordance with the age taking
into consideration the child’s individual and age peculiarities.
The federal requirements state that the content of the pre-school education
shall comprise all spheres of a pre-school-child personal development: social and
individual, intellectual, physical, artistic and aesthetical.
It is important that the pre-school teachers are trying to cooperate in a
constructive way with the families of the pupils to ensure the unity of the
approaches to upbringing and education of the children both on the part of the
family and the kindergarten. Every day parents receive information about the
progress of their child, may discuss with the pre-school teacher the problems that
concern them and get an expert advice.
Parents (or their legal representatives) pay the parent's fee for their child’s
visiting a pre-school institution. The law stipulates that the amount of the parent’s
fee shall not exceed 20% of the total costs incurred by a pre-school institution for
taking care of a pre-school age child. The parents of the children with special needs
do not pay the parent’s fee. Moreover the state has adopted a new form of financial
support of the citizens having pre-school age children that is a compensation of a
part of the parent’s fee. On average, more than 4 million families received the
compensation annually 2007 – 2009.
3. Regional policy in the sphere of pre-school education.
The main measure in the Package of measures at the regional level is
development and implementation of regional pre-school education development
programmes as a part of the regional system of education.
“The regional target programme for improving demographic situation in
Rostov Region in 2008-2010” has been adopted in Rostov Region, which provides
for introduction of 20.5 thousand places for the pre-school children by the end of
2010.
The regional target programme “Development of education in Bryansk
Region in 2007-2010” has been developed in Bryansk Region, the
implementation of which presupposes an increase in the number of children at the
age from 1 to 6 years receiving the services of the pre-school education from 51%
in 2006 to 65% in 2009.
The target programme “The demographic development of the Altai Krai in
2008-2015” containing the subsection “Support of the families with children” has
been developed and is being implemented in the Altai Krai. It provides for an
increase in the number of pre-school educational institutions until 2015 by way of
creating about 21 thousand additional places for the pre-school age children. For
this purpose new buildings are being constructed, the old buildings are being
reconstructed, the number of groups in the operating kindergartens is being
increased.
The regional target programme “Children” for 2007-2009, which stipulates
shortening of the queue for getting a place in a pre-school institution by 50% by
2009 and ensuring accessible pre-school education by 75% has been adopted by
the law of the Krasnoyarsk Krai dated December 26, 2006 No. 21-5664. By the
way, the Krasnoyarsk Krai (as well as the Perm Krai) has chosen an interesting
way to enforce the state guarantees for securing accessible pre-school education.
Taking into account the difficulties with the implementation of the capital
construction and commissioning of new kindergarten buildings in these regions,
the parents whose children need a place in a pre-school institution but cannot get
one (because of the shortage of places) receive compensation out of the regional
budget assets. The amount of the compensation equals to the required amount for
keeping a child in a kindergarten (during a month). Thus, parents who provide preschool education to their children at home receive monthly compensations.
Besides, in order to provide psychological and educational assistance for such
children a system of advisory centers, parents clubs, “Mothers’ schools” have been
established where parents may consult a psychologist, educator, music teacher,
physical training teacher.
Special attention should be devoted to the pre-school education development
programme in Moscow, Krasnodar Krai and Perm Krai and Chelyabinsk
Region. Not only new kindergartens are being constructed here, the old ones are
being renovated, such form of pre-school education as family pre-school groups is
being tried. These are pre-school groups with a small number of pupils (3-5
children) which might be created in the families with many children, in the unused
municipal buildings, in the pre-school teacher’s houses. It is important that every
pre-school family group may receive all kind of assistance and support from the
nearby kindergarten namely specialists’ consultations, medical assistance for the
children and training for the family group pre-school teachers.
Such forms of pre-school education as children playing and development
centers and lekoteks have been established in Moscow, which act both as
institutions for a short-time staying of the children who do not go to kindergartens,
and consultancy assistance centers for their parents. The experience of creating
lekoteks, where correctional activities and socialization of the children with special
needs are being carried out, is especially valuable.
The regional component of the priority national project “Education” is
being implemented in many subjects of the Russian Federation.
Ten annual awards in the amount of 300, 000 Rubles each for the best
municipal pre-school educational institutions and 66 annual awards in the amount
of 30, 000 Rubles each for the best pre-school teachers of municipal pre-school
educational institutions have been established since 2008 by the Decree of the
Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Adygeya.
Also, 35 annual awards for the best educators of pre-school educational
institutions in the amount of 50 thousand Rubles have been established since 2008
by the Decree of the President of the Republic Sakha (Yakutia).
Similar annual awards or grants for the best kindergartens and the best preschool teachers exist in the Republic of Khakassia and the Republic of Kalmykia,
in Krasnodar Krai and Krasnoyarsk Krai, in Nizhny Novgorod, Orenburg,
Sverdlovsk and Ulyanovsk Regions, in other subjects of the Russian Federation.
4. Prospects of the pre-school education development.
The prospects of the of pre-school education system development are
determined by a number of program documents of the Government of the Russian
Federation: by The Main Fields of Activity of the Government of the Russian
Federation for the Period until 2012 (adopted by the Decree of the Government of
the Russian Federation dated November 17, 2008 No. 1663-r) and by The Concept
of the demographic policy of the Russian Federation for the period until 2025
(adopted by the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated October 9,
2007 No. 1351).
Thus, The Main Fields of Activity of the Government of the Russian
Federation for the Period until 2012 provide for:
• the introduction of the pre-school education models which ensure that
every child has an opportunity to master the educational programmes for the
children of the older pre-school age and freely communicate in the official
language and in the language of studying when accepted into the first class;
• development of incentives for creation of the educational services system,
ensuring the family upbringing support, for the families with children under three
years in the first place, including creation of the family upbringing support centers
on the basis of pre-school educational and other institutions);
• introduction of new organizational forms of pre-school education, the socalled “family kindergartens” or the “in-built” kindergartens, home or tutor
groups, family clubs, social playing rooms as structural branches of the municipal
or state pre-school educational establishments, which will provide the
aforementioned organizations with personnel and will ensure psychological and
pedagogical assistance and control;
• introduction of the mechanisms of normative per capita financing of the
pre-school education services provided by educational institutions of any type, any
legal and organizational forms and department affiliation;
• support of the municipal programmes of the pre-school education
development ensuring introduction of modern pre-school educational models;
• normative and methodical support in the questions of the private sector preschool education development on the basis of the municipal assignment.
The Concept of the demographic policy of the Russian Federation for the
period until 2025 provides for development and implementation of regional
programmes of the pre-school education system development as a part of the
educational system of the subjects of the Russian Federation.
5. Recommendations of the World Conference on Early Childhood Care
and Education.
Approve of the Russian Federation experience in upbringing and education of
small children and recommend it for studying and possible use in the member
countries of UNESCO.