MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF BELARUS

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November 16, Minister of Education Andrei Ivanets visited the Gomel oblast as part of a working trip.

The program includes a meeting with the leadership of the Lelchitsy district executive committee, a visit to educational institutions in the region, familiarization with the material and technical base, conditions for organizing the educational process and priority areas of activity of the State Educational Institution "Lelchitsy District Gymnasium named after I.A. Kolos", as well as meeting with the heads of educational institutions and teachers of the region.

During a visit to the State Educational Institution “Lelchitsy Regional Gymnasium named after I.A. Kolos,” the Minister of Education met with the teaching staff and got acquainted with the organization of the educational process.

There are 804 students studying in the educational institution and the educational process is carried out by 67 teachers.

In order to form an intellectually developed personality, develop the creative abilities of students, and provide career guidance to students, all conditions have been created in the gymnasium for these purposes. Thus, modern classrooms equipped with interactive whiteboards and multimedia projectors, a multidisciplinary physics classroom, a resource and information center with a local network and Internet access, a mobile computer class, library, press center, gym and modern sports town, dining room, vitamin bar, buffet, medical and dental offices. There is even a winter garden and cozy recreation areas for students.

Self-government bodies function effectively in the gymnasium: the gymnasium council, the pedagogical council, the board of trustees and the parent committee, as well as the student government council.

Students and teaching staff of the gymnasium achieved many victories at the regional, republican and international levels. Every year, more than 80 percent of gymnasium graduates enter higher education institutions.

Gymnasium has three 100-point Centralized Testing certificates in mathematics, Russian language, and German language.

In the 2022/2023 academic year, based on the results of performances at the third stage of the Republican Olympiad and the final stage of the regional Olympiad, students won 5 diplomas.

It is worth noting that the students and teachers of the gymnasium are winners of numerous district, regional and republican intellectual and creative competitions. Thus, based on the results of 10 months of 2023 students have won 33 regional-level diplomas, 9 republican-level diplomas and 16 international-level diplomas.

The meeting of the Minister of Education with the heads of educational institutions of the Lelchitsy district was no less important. Participants discussed current issues of the educational process, career guidance for young people, work with children with special needs of psychophysical development, and prevention of illegal behavior.

Communicating with pedagogical activists, the head of the department focused the attention of those present on the work that is being carried out in the district, region and throughout the republic and is based not only on teaching students, but also on psychological and pedagogical support. Thanks to specialists in various fields, the created socio-psychological and pedagogical conditions in the complex contribute to the successful development and learning, and also help in solving a number of problems related to the socialization of schoolchildren.

The head of the department paid special attention to the issues of educating children and youth, starting from preschool age, denoting: “Children will bring to school everything they have learned in a kindergarten. And they will be ready to study and behave correctly in a team. Therefore, serious work in preschool educational institutions is the primary task of teachers.”

The second important area that the Minister drew attention to is the educational process. And the teacher’s contribution in this direction is not so much to work out the algorithm for correctly teaching preschool children spelling skills, the ability to count, read, but also to form the children’s worldview, respectful attitude towards parents, family, their educational institution, the small locality in which they live and the state as well.

Andrei Ivanets further addressed school directors and set the task as follows: to take a very responsible approach to issues of career guidance, identifying children and adolescents’ abilities for certain types of professional activities. The main thing is that the child chooses a good profession, receives a quality education and gets his first job. At the same time, according to the Minister, it is equally important whether it is higher education, specialized secondary education or vocational education. No way specialists with higher education are a priority, and guys who go to сollege are losers and won’t get a job.

Therefore, each school must build a trajectory, both educational and professional.

During the meeting, information was also heard that not only the school should go to enterprises for the purpose of career guidance for students, but also the heads of enterprises and organizations, chief engineers, and technologists should come to children in educational institutions, introduce them to the real sector of the economy, tell them what specialists are in demand today. And it is quite necessary to invite parents of students to such meetings, and parents will understand what educational opportunities their children have.

Another key point is that 11th graders again have the opportunity to become students ahead of schedule. 21 regional universities will hold university Olympiads. And registration has already begun. To register, you need to select the educational institution where you would like to enroll, decide on the subject and fill out a form. Keep in mind that the subject of the Olympiad must coincide with the first specialized subject of the CT, which is needed for admission to a university.

Last year, 369 people were admitted without exams. 75 percent of them live in the same regions where the university they entered is located. The quota for enrollment without entrance tests for the winners of Olympiads is 15 percent of the target numbers for admission at the expense of the budget for all specialties in full-time education.

Medalists enter any regional university without exams.

In terms of priority specialties today, these are pedagogical ones. We are looking for purposeful guys who are passionate about their profession.

Specifically, the Minister focused on free visits by students to the country’s museums on every last Wednesday of the month. After all, in every operating museum in Belarus there is something to see and learn about the heroic past of our people. Such visits to museums form a respectful attitude towards our history and culture and foster patriotism.

Andrey Ivanets also emphasized such a significant feature as the fact that school is a territory of comfort, thus high-quality and diverse conditions for learning must be created. Therefore, teachers need to seriously think about activities on Saturdays and competently organize cultural and sports events.

At the end of a meaningful and constructive conversation, the participants had an opportunity to ask the Minister of Education their questions and get reasoned answers.