Mintimer Shaimiev: “Establishing multilingual educational complexes is a win-win project”

On April 1, after the meeting held by Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov on establishing new multilingual educational complexes in the republic, Tatarstan State Counsellor Mintimer Shaimiev, Minister of Education and Science of the republic Rafis Burganov, Rector of Kazan Federal University Ilshat Gafurov and Principle of Secondary School No. 165 Aidar Shamsutdinov took part in a briefing dedicated to this topic.

“Times change, as does our life. The education system needs to be changed as well. There are many problems in this area. It is not easy work to do. It cannot be done at once, tremendous patience and knowledge are required to preserve the Tatar language, to provide a good education in Russian and to open up opportunities for foreign languages. Today the world is open, and we should prepare our children for modern requirements, they should be competitive, preserving their native language, fluent in the state language of the Russian Federation – Russian and speak at least one more language. In this case, we offer English lessons in schools. Establishing multilingual educational complexes is a win-win project,” Shaimiev said speaking at the briefing.

“Of course, work will be carried out in accordance with federal education standards. We need to think about providing well-paid jobs for our children in Tatarstan after their completion of secondary studies and vocational training,” he added.

Shaimiev said that the implementation of the project will start with six educational complexes, that will be opened in Kazan (two of them), Naberezhnye Chelny, Almetyevsk, Nizhnekamsk and Yelabuga, since educational problems are concentrated mainly in these cities. Apart from schools, the complexes will include basic kindergartens, as well as centres of supplementary education. The first complex in Kazan will be located in Secondary School No. 165. The school will be repaired and an extension will be built. This complex will include a new school, the construction of which has already started on Bondarenko Street. The school has already chosen five basic kindergartens.

The State Counsellor of the republic drew attention to a key problem - training of specialists for both multilingual schools and the education system as a whole. He noted that Kazan Federal University has sufficient resources to train teachers capable of working in a multilingual educational environment.