Teachers' Day is Russia's "most authoritative, most widely-celebrated and most important" professional day, says Education Minister Dmitry Livanov. "Everyone remembers their teachers, and everyone is grateful for the attention and care they showed them", said the head of the ministry.
The Minister of Education dedicated his address to the more than 1,000,000 teachers that work in the Russian Federation, writes
Kommersant. "Teachers are continuing to develop new skills", added the minister, referring to statistics that showed that Russian teaching staff were becoming better educated, with more university degrees, and that the average teacher was getting younger each year, a situation which compares favourably to that in many other developed economies.
Such were the results of recently completed international research which was conducted in more than 30 countries around the world, including the USA, Australia, Japan, and many European states.
The research also indicated that Russian teachers are satisfied with their social status. The minister puts this down in large part to recent increases in teachers' salaries. "In the last three years the average teacher's salary has almost doubled", he said. All these facts have contributed to what he describes as the "warm manner" in which the 50th annual Teachers' Day has been met by educational staff across the country. "We know that there are still problems to resolve, but it is very important that professionals in the educational sphere continue to be charged up and enthusiastic about their work", said the minister.
Livanov also pointed to statistics showing a growth in the number of people applying to become teachers, changing the unfortunate situation which existed for many years where teaching was considered a second-rate profession. "This gives great grounds for optimism", concluded the education minister.
