Last week I received news about the death of a young schoolgirl. She was visiting school No. 70 in Bischkek, which is located on Bakonbaeva / Manasa. The school is known for its good reputation. Which is a problem. It is the reason why many concerned parents try to place their kid at that particular school. At least here classes are taught and teacher do come to work. A friend of mine, who got his younger sister on that school now reports high level of motivation from the side of his sister.
However, one problem becomes obvious: the school is overpopulated. Classes consist of 40 and more students and teachers are overcharged with the task to control this load of teens. The directorate tries to prevent more students from entering the school (I witnessed it, when my friend got his sister put there) but one call from somewhere up the educational (or political) hierarchy and the question is settled. Certainly money also plays a role, too. Today, the school hosts double the amount of students that it is actually formally allowed to.
Since control can’t be exerted (too many students) and kids from rich parents meet those who are just living in the region and therefore have the right to a place, the atmosphere is somehow fraught with tension. Recently organized raids among the kids have become a problem in particular (next to organized fights between groups of (male) students from different schools). The ‘cool’ guys pick a victim and force it to pay them money, they tease it and sometimes they beat it up. As far as I heard, this problem is widespread. The directorate tries to work on the problem by inviting parents and informing them about the raids.
Unfortunately this was not enough for a little girl of 12 years. She jumped out of the window of the fourth floor of the building where she lived with her parents. She was presumably heavily mobbed by students from the school and so despaired, that she allegedly tried to hang herself. Her father saved her that time. Several days later she jumped.
Now the big question is: who is responsible for the death of a 12 year old girl who could not find another exit out of her misery but to commit suicide. The school directorate? Surely they could have done more to get people engage and work on the problem. What about the parents in all this? Actually I don’t dare to judge them. All I heard is that they were well off, so that usual cut and dry opinions probably don’t work in this case (like poor parents or alcohol or absolute carelessness).
It is easier to see the politician’s guilt in this tragedy. A teacher who is starting to work at a school after coming from the university gets a salary of some hundred som. Not enough to make a living. That’s why most of them start to work a second job. Or they start to sell grades. Most schools can’t prevent their teachers from doing so because the directors know that the salary is not enough. Or they participate in the grade selling. As a consequence, many schools provide only basic education and are not considered to be good. Some seem not to function at all.
More money is needed for the educational system. Why not reducing the numbers of ministries and state agencies and using the saved money for the educational system? Or using money from the presidential administration’s extern budget (made up of grants and privatizations). Or perhaps closing the administration at all? Using all the money for the schools! (it is quite a lot, what the tax payer has to pay for the presidential administration, which is doubled in its functions by the premier’s administration, which itself is mirrored by the ministries of the government). Finally deciding on the structure of the educational system which in itself today is regulated by many contradictory rules, where one type of school (like the tekhnikumy) is under direct control of the ministry of education (i.e. Ishengul’ Boldzhurova) whereas others are supposed to be regulated by local bodies (РОО); the municipalities have to pay for TeploVodaEnergia, the rayon decides on the director, the director on the teachers, which are paid by the central state. Some more coherence in the structure of the educational system (without reference to the question of centralized or decentralized) would probably lead to an optimized performance of the overall system.
The result could be less stress and more self confidence from the side of the teachers, more school selection options for the parents and, consequently, more motivation from the side of the students. It remains to be seen, if the current government under Chudinov is willing to spend more time on the needs of the educational sector and if Ishengul’ Boldzhurova can dedicate herself to a long lasting reform. So far it seems that Chudinov is fully occupied to privatize what has been left of the state’s strategic assets and Boldzhurova criticizes the current situation but without suggesting a way out of the crisis.
A reform of the educational system is neccessary. The tragic case of the young girl should alert the legislators and the executive branch to finally do something about the ever deteriorating situation. Before another teen is so despaired that she decides to kill herself and jumps …
