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An atmos­phere of impunity and poor funding for schools in Kabardino-Balkaria has led to state schools being run as busi­ness­es, with a teachers making money at the expense of parents and their children.

‘Only paupers don’t pay’

Certain sections of Kabardino-Balkaria’s edu­ca­tion­al and municipal author­i­ties have turned the republic’s edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions into their own personal racket. Heads of kinder­gartens, head­teach­ers, sports trainers, and managers of utility companies are widely engaged in illegally solic­it­ing cash donations from the public. The prof­itabil­i­ty of this kind of ‘business’ is facil­i­tat­ed by both the complete indif­fer­ence of the author­i­ties in Kabardino-Balkaria, and a lack of legal under­stand­ing among citizens of the republic. All over the place, money is being squeezed out of people on various pretexts. Zemfira Ozrokova from the town of Prokhlod­no­vo has been fighting against such fees for several years.

‘My daughter studies at School № 1 and it’s usual to have fees here’, she tells OC Media. ‘Parents pay for new textbooks, for repairs to the school building and the class­rooms — this is an annual levy. Plus, every year we pay for [things like] curtains or black­boards, and two years ago we had to chip in for new windows. Last year we paid for every­thing and this year no doubt will be the same.’

According to Ozrokova, School № 3, con­sid­ered to be ‘elite’ in Prokhlod­no­vo, is even more of a rip off. She talks about how parents’ failure to pay these ‘con­tri­bu­tions’ can impact upon their child.

‘For five whole years I tried to protest. I wrote countless letters — but to no avail, as they [the teachers] have every­thing under their control. Knowing that the parents haven’t paid, the teachers will begin to humiliate the child and insist that the “pauper” either pay up or leave the school. But I’m a single mother!’

Unbreakable contracts

The same system of financial con­tri­bu­tions exists in the majority of preschool insti­tu­tions through­out the republic. One of these is Ogonek, Nalchik’s kinder­garten № 23, which is attended by the 5-year-old son of Madina Shavayeva.

‘As well as the official fee — ₽1,500 ($25) per month — we also have to pay con­tri­bu­tions every month for toi­letries, then group pho­tographs, excur­sions, and trips, which are literally imposed upon us, and we even have to pay for the curtains’, she tells OC Media. ‘Last year they collected money for new children’s lockers, but after they were finally installed, the children from that group were trans­ferred to another room with old lockers. Now we’re expecting there to be further col­lec­tions for furniture. The payments are collected without any proper reg­is­tra­tion, and when you point out to the head of the kinder­garten that these col­lec­tions are illegal, his response is to say “well, but you know the state is not funding us properly” ’.

OC Media also inves­ti­gat­ed how preschool insti­tu­tions are supplied with food. A former teacher at kinder­garten № 19, Galina Borisova, recounts how each kinder­garten puts out a tender for a contract to supply food. Naturally the company supplying the best quality product wins the tender. The head of the kinder­garten then enters into a long-term contract with the supplier, which can be for up to five years, the terms of which forbid it from being uni­lat­er­al­ly ter­mi­nat­ed. Knowing the contract cannot be broken, the supplier often begins to supply the kinder­garten with sub­stan­dard or out-of-date products. The cooks usually throw these away and the children instead receive fruits, veg­eta­bles, sweets, or milk, either purchased by their own parents or grown in their own gardens.

Impossible to prove

Lawyer Mikhail Barokov explained to OC Media that according to Federal Law № 273, ‘On Education in the Russian Fed­er­a­tion’, ‘all costs for the payment of teachers, the purchase of textbooks, and teaching aids — including computers and other digital tech­nol­o­gy — games and toys are to be provided by the regional admin­is­tra­tion’ — that is, in this case, the Ministry of Education of Kabardino-Balkaria.

‘Schools and kinder­gartens are obliged to provide every­thing free of charge – from teaching materials and textbooks to office equipment’, says Barokov. ‘Local author­i­ties are respon­si­ble for repairs and main­te­nance of buildings, sports grounds, and play­grounds. It is their respon­si­bil­i­ty after all to take care of these things — they should not be col­lect­ing money from parents to pay for lawn equipment or planting trees!’

Article 101 of the law, however, contains a clause which essen­tial­ly allows schools and kinder­gartens to collect money from parents ‘by contract’, for addi­tion­al edu­ca­tion­al services. These include: training in addi­tion­al edu­ca­tion­al pro­grammes, teaching of spe­cial­ist courses and dis­ci­plines, tutoring, in-depth study, and other services not provided as part of the standard cur­ricu­lum.

‘Kinder­gartens and schools have very con­ve­nient loopholes’, he explains. ‘These are, for example, Article 41 of the law “On Education” and Article 1 of the law “On Char­i­ta­ble Activ­i­ties” which state that char­i­ta­ble activ­i­ties may be conducted for edu­ca­tion­al purposes, including in preschool insti­tu­tions, and that kinder­gartens have the right to accept voluntary donations.’

According to Barkov, it is possible to penalise a kindergarten’s admin­is­tra­tion or school head­teacher for demanding money or dis­crim­i­nat­ing against children whose parents do not pay. However, proving that coercion or dis­crim­i­na­tion has occurred is almost impos­si­ble, and teachers can claim that a child is making up alle­ga­tions in retal­i­a­tion for bad grades or some other reason.

‘In addition, the col­lec­tions are usually organised by the elected chairman of the parents’ committee. That is, the money is not given directly to the head­teacher or teacher, but through a third party and there are no documents recording the trans­ac­tion’, Barkov says.

Scandals

Nev­er­the­less, sometimes it has been possible to convict school employees engaged in extortion. It’s possible for parents to report them, but then, as has been mentioned, there is a danger that their children will receive ‘special treatment’, so as a rule parents do not dare to demand that schools obey the law. Usually such attempts are stopped in their tracks. In the best-case scenario, the director of the school will receive an admin­is­tra­tive penalty. Several recent such examples can be seen in several scandals which erupted last year:

• School № 11; Baksan: the pros­e­cu­tor inves­ti­gat­ed a complaint from parents con­cern­ing illegal col­lec­tions for food and repairs.
• Gymnasium № 25; Nalchik: the pros­e­cu­tor of Kabardino-Balkaria inves­ti­gat­ed a complaint from a local resident about demands by the head­teacher for donations. The donations — totaling ₽54,000 ($900) — were sup­pos­ed­ly for equipment needed by the school.
• Terek: a group of teachers led by the head­teacher of one school sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly extorted money from parents, sup­pos­ed­ly to build class­rooms.

In the first case, the culprits were let off with a reprimand, but the pros­e­cu­tor in Baksan high­light­ed the need for the head of the town admin­is­tra­tion to eradicate such practices. In the second case, the head of the school received a warning about ‘the inad­mis­si­bil­i­ty of violating the law’, and the third case resulted in the res­ig­na­tion of two teachers ‘of their own accord’.

A Soviet legacy?

How is it possible to explain such a dis­mis­sive attitude from law enforce­ment agencies and the author­i­ties towards the extortion which flour­ish­es in edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions in Kabardino-Balkaria? Margarita Shogenova, a veteran school­teacher in Nalchik, believes that this system developed during the Soviet period.

She tells OC Media tha ‘school­teach­ers always received a pittance, although they had to work hard not only within the school walls, but also outside — marking school work and tests written by pupils. In this situation, the state itself pushed them to bribery.’

According to Shogenova, ‘in Soviet times the price of obtaining an edu­ca­tion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tion was quite high and people received high marks in exchange for cash or other materials. Today there remains an extensive edu­ca­tion­al infra­struc­ture and in the absence of funds for its main­te­nance, the school heads collect “tributes” from the students. Through organ­is­ing various types of cash col­lec­tions from parents, they not only enrich them­selves, but they also manage to keep the schools entrusted to them in a more or less rea­son­able state. In such con­di­tions, students get not so much as an education as a document to say that they completed school. They under­stand that high social status in Kabardino-Balkaria does not come through a high level of education, but rather through wealth or belonging to a par­tic­u­lar clan.’

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