The Union State plans to establish the Association Minsk, May 18. The Education Ministries have decided to establish the Association of colleges Belarus and Russia. This was one of the decisions taken as a result of the joint meeting of the Belarusian and Russian Education Ministries panels.

Prior to the meeting the guests laid flowers at the Minsk Hero City Obelisk and visited the Belarusian Great Patriotic War Museum. The parties have been dealing with the issue of patriotic education all day long.

The National Children’s Technopark took the baton and welcomed teachers from both countries. Andrei Ivanets and Sergei Kravtsov discussed top priority ways of cooperation with their colleagues. Firstly, the parties discussed training of the certified teaching stuff and creation of work places; sharing experience and teaching methods, as well as those methods for work with children in special education needs. Patriotic education was discussed as well.

The most active exchange of experience is that between Belarusian teachers who work with preschool children and colleagues from the Leningrad and Tomsk oblasts, as well as Kaliningrad, Saratov, Surgut, Chita, and Krasnodar ones. The parties discuss ways for the development of preschool education and means of increasing the professional competence of teachers during video conferences, webinars, and teleconferences

Particular attention is paid to interaction at the level of general secondary education. Currently, the Association of Schools of Belarus and Russia is dynamically developing. A unique international communication platform for the implementation of new opportunities for exchange, generalization and dissemination of best practices has grown significantly over four years and now unites more than 500 teaching teams. It is possible that in the near future a section of engineering classes will appear in the structure of the Association.

Today the parties agreed on school exchanges between our educational institutions and the Bryansk, Smolensk and Pskov oblasts. It means that children will be offered more and more educational routes.

Andrei Ivanets focused on training personnel at the level of vocational and technical secondary education. The country is carrying out large-scale work to unify educational programs of scientific and methodological support in order to transfer to college students a universal knowledge and competencies that they can apply in practice and be in demand in the labor market.

Mr. Ivanets also spoke about the important decision that was made today at a joint meeting of the panels - the creation of the Association of Colleges of Belarus and Russia. “The association will truly integrate and unite the levels of our special and vocational education in the two countries. The most important aspect that we, of course, talked about today is the education of the individual. We see potential not only in our schools, but also in institutions that conduct summer health campaigns and in student groups. We are preparing a protocol and agreement on the transfer of the corresponding unified digital content on personality education, which will be implemented in the very near future,” explained the head of the Belarusian educational department.

In turn, Russian Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov noted the following: “Our departments have solid cooperation ties in dozens of fields. Today we have paid special attention to the development of secondary vocational education. We agreed to create an Association of Colleges of Belarus and Russia and to intensify school exchanges between the countries. We paid special attention to issues of information interaction. The Belarusian side has great interest in this aspect. Close cooperation in personnel training improves the economic climate of the two countries. The decision to integrate secondary specialized education systems and create an Association of Colleges is also important for the development of the economies of our countries.”

Every year, at the Republican Institute of Vocational Education alone, about 300 teaching staff from Russian regions from colleges undergo advanced training. The most in-demand are courses on the development of inclusive education, the organization of advanced training using competency centers, and the development of a digital environment for electronic educational courses.

The joint efforts of allies in the field of education are now aimed at ensuring that the systems of preschool, general secondary, vocational and secondary special education are mobile, self-developing, taking into account both the needs of the individual in quality education and the tasks of development of society and the state, and also sensitively responding to the global challenges of our time. In this regard, new joint educational projects will be implemented between Belarus and Russia. State Secretary of the Union State Dmitry Mezentsev explained: “We agreed that today conversations about training specialists in working specialties for real production will continue and will be carried out at the sites of the most advanced production associations of the two countries. The prestige of the working profession, especially now, when the success of the unified industrial policy of the Union State has proven its effectiveness, is increasingly relevant. This is related to the tasks of ensuring competitiveness and import substitution.”

At the same time, according to experts, the patriotic agenda is coming to the fore. At a meeting of the panels, the Secretary of State of the Union State demonstrated the book “There is no statute of limitations...”. It is based on the materials of the criminal case about the genocide of the Belarusian and Soviet peoples, the investigation of the Prosecutor General's Office of Belarus, the decisions of the courts of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. For teachers of the Union State it can be used as an important source.

Forming and preserving the historical memory of the younger generation is the most important task for teachers of the two countries. Of particular importance here is the Belarusian-Russian patriotic project “Memory Train”. In August it is planned to hold a festival of military-patriotic camps and clubs “We have something to be proud of, we have something to protect!” It can become another effective form of educating children and youth of the Union State.

The meeting of leaders and representatives of the educational spheres of Belarus and Russia ended today with a visit to secondary school No. 61 in Minsk, where they demonstrated the work of military-patriotic and agricultural classes. Teachers and students presented their most significant projects that they are implementing in the Year of Quality.

On the sidelines of a joint meeting of the boards, the principal of the capital’s gymnasium No. 1 named after Francysk Skaryna, Natalia Bushnaya, admitted: “We are further developing our cooperation and are also celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Union State. We have generally created six sections of spiritual, moral, patriotic, mathematical education, and education through culture.”

The next joint meeting of the boards of the two relevant departments will be held in Russia. It is planned that the work plan until 2026 will be approved by the Ministry of Education of Belarus and the Ministry of Education of Russia by September.