Certification, aka mockery: how teachers are fired bypassing the Labor Code

Grigory Gabrielyan

I have the most basic education is a history teacher, and I still have great sympathy for the people of this profession.

At the press conference, they talked about how the mechanism works impact on "obstinate" teachers.

It was about pedagogical certification. The fact is that the certification methodology is often organized and arranged in such a way that, although every aspect of it does not contradict the laws, but their interpretation by the administration of educational institutions makes it an illegal instrument of influence on teachers and allows them to be fired, bypassing the Labor Code.

This is not an unfounded statement. I have heard very similar stories from teachers and teachers of different specializations and different educational institutions who faced the same problems.

Judge for yourself.

Yulia Markova from St. Petersburg, teacher of proofreading at the secondary educational institution Academy of Urban Environment Management, Construction and Printing (AUGSGiP) for about two years now he has been suing the administration. She won 11 disciplinary and illegal dismissal courts. But the certification system makes her completely defenseless against a possible upcoming dismissal.

Marina Kapustina from Moscow, primary school teacher, three years since she was dismissed after attestation for compliance with the position held, carried out contrary to the methods of the relevant ministry, arbitrarily by the director.

Elena Shirokovskikh - teacher of solfeggio and conducting at the school of arts in the city of Sosnovy Bor - during the certification, fully experienced devaluation practice

Sergei Onishchenko, a computer science teacher at a secondary school, was fired after being certified for his position and reinstated by the court...

We are talking about experienced teachers who have already had to prove their compliance not only with their position, but also with the highest qualification category.

Natalia Berezina, editor of the Pedsovet.org website, also announced that the problem of teacher certification exists and is being updated.

“I dream of the time when a teacher will be able to confirm or upgrade a qualification category through training on quality courses and acquiring new skills”, - she said.

N. Berezina also said that the initiative Pedagogical council. The Org "For Voluntary Attestation" is posted on the website of the Russian Public Initiative (ROI).

What, in fact, is the mechanism of manipulation in the certification process?

Attestation - there is a tool for checking professional development and, importantly, assigning a category to teachers and teachers. The higher the category, the higher the authority and, of course, the teacher's salary. Agree that it looks like an excellent mechanism of influence. However, in practice, it is implemented mainly not in favor of teachers and schoolchildren, but more in favor of school administrations, which receive obedient and loyal employees, as well as in favor of officials from education.

Certification for qualification categories usually involve participation in numerous one-day contests, as well as attending courses of questionable level without the right to choose. The organizers of competitions and courses receive money from the budget. Teachers work for a ghostly prospect - having typed "points", in the future they will receive a penny allowance. Trying to earn as many “points” as possible, teachers involve already overworked children in various “activities”. The requirements may be different according to regional regulations, but, as a rule, they all have nothing to do with the real quality of the lessons, but require a waste of effort and money. For example, there are proposals from the authorities to take pictures of lessons on camera. at the expense of their own resources and others like that.

If a teacher or college instructor does not want to take part in such humiliating procedures, he or she will face another test: certification for compliance with the position held. A federal regulation is already in force here, which does not contain compliance criteria (they can be any at the whim of the administration), but allows the employee to be dismissed without the right of appeal. In fact, the certification system is a system of legalized dismissal bypassing the Labor Code. This is psychological, or rather institutional, violence, condemned by the International Labor Organization. By the way, the ILO equates violence in the workplace with such grave crimes against the person as murder, robbery, rape.

- Psychological abuse often does not attract public attention. Meanwhile, it brings significant harm to the individual and society. Abuse in the workplace makes workers depressed and passive. It is not surprising that teachers have recently fallen into the category of morally ambivalent citizens and the status of the profession has declined, ”said Marina Balueva, an anchor of the press conference, co-chair of the Teacher trade union. - The most effective tool in this process is pedagogical certification.

As a result, not only the teacher's skill is not confirmed in any way, but on the contrary - even the most qualified employee is not guaranteed against dismissal.

In the speakers' reports, I saw at least a number of aspects of manipulation arising from legal conflicts between legislative and regulatory acts.

Some of the speakers, for example, Muscovite Marina Kapustina, thanks to her extraordinary persistence, achieved a substantive answer from the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. From the answer it followed that the certification should be carried out exclusively according to the methodology, which, in fact, was developed by the Ministry itself. Moreover, the development of this normative act, as well as changes in it, are carried out exclusively by the federal authority, then is in this case, all the same by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation.

Any "additions" from themselves by the regional committees of education or, moreover, by the administrations of educational institutions, in fact, are a violation of the regulations of the Ministry, however, they do not contradict the Federal Regulation, the very text of which gives "carte blanche" to anyone. "Additions", in this case, should be considered both the methods of attestation invented by the administrations, and, moreover, an increase in the number of and broad interpretation of these methods.

It would seem that in such circumstances, the Ministry of Education itself should initiate the alignment of the Federal Regulation on Attestation with the bylaws of the Ministry. But it was not there. Teachers who have suffered from the arbitrariness of the administrations are offered to go to court.

As a result, the nerves of teachers are crushed, schools are firing good teachers and the very meaning of attestation is lost.

According to the organizers and participants of the press conference, the easiest way out of the current situation, the legitimate principle of voluntary attestation can be recognized, that is, when they themselves teachers initiate her. And of course it should be carried out exclusively in accordance with once and for all established uniform normative acts.

Once, referring to the results of the Franco-Prussian war of the century before last, German Chancellor Bismarck noticed that the German teacher won the war.

The then Prussian teacher, like the Russian one, were government officials with a correspondingly high salary and clearly defined educational programs.

Now, in every way case, in accordance with the Federal State Educational Standard, it is believed that students should develop freely and as creatively as possible. Accordingly and their teachers must be creative and free.

In practice, in the Russian Federation it doesn't work that way.

Why? Decide for yourself...