Publications
This article analyses changes to the language policy in Russia in 2017, and their effects on the state (national) languages of Russia’s republics within the education system. In July 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a speech at the Council on Interethnic Relations, addressing the language rights of the Russian-speaking population and stressing the existing limit of the power of Russia’s 22 ethnic republics to introduce compulsory study of their official languages. The President’s statements provoked widespread prosecutorial inspections in the republics’ schools and a new round of public discussion about language policy. Public discontent in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Komi led to protests against both ethnic Russians and the native speakers of languages recognised as co-official with Russian (‘state languages of the republics’). The authorities of some republics publicly disagreed with the position taken by the federal government. In other republics, however, the President’s speech did not trigger any public discussion. In many republics, it looks like the regional authorities will ultimately accept the decision of the federal government and speakers of republican languages will not actively defend their languages. Effectively, the balance of rights of the federation and the republics for the establishment of state languages, achieved in the 1990s, was violated.
The monograph is the second book from the trilogy devoted to the study of the legal aspects ensuring the financial security of the Russian Federation. The presented work is aimed at forming an integrated and systematic approach to the theoretical and legal identification of the financial security risks essence and determining risk modifications. In the monograph, the genesis of the concept of risks (philosophical, theoretical, legal, economical, financial, etc.) is scrutinized with emphasis on the basic concept of financial security risks. A legal mechanism for managing financial security risks is disclosed, including the problems of their identificationand assessment, as well as the features of their prevention, minimization of consequences and liquidation; the system of bodies authorized to manage risks is also studied.
The multilevel analysis of the legal regulation of the most acute issues of financial security risk management, from acts of local self-government bodies, regional and federal Russian legislation to international and foreign acts, makes this study unique. Preserving the scientific continuity laid down in the first book — the Institutes of Financial Security, special attention is paid to the consideration of financial security risks in its separate spheres: budgetary, tax and public banking systems, the system of monetary circulation, the sphere of gold and foreign currency reserves, financial markets, and the monograph supplemented by a study of risks in such areas as compulsory state social insurance, circulation of precious metals and precious stones, anti-money laundering.
For scientific workers, practicing lawyers and economists, officials of state and municipal bodies, teachers, graduate students, students of law schools studying in the legal and economic specialties, with in depth study of the problems of ensuring financial security and financial and legal support for the state.
The monograph is the second book from the trilogy devoted to the study of the legal aspects ensuring the financial security of the Russian Federation. The presented work is aimed at forming an integrated and systematic approach to the theoretical and legal identification of the financial security risks essence and determining risk modifications. In the monograph, the genesis of the concept of risks (philosophical, theoretical, legal, economical, financial, etc.) is scrutinized with emphasis on the basic concept of financial security risks. A legal mechanism for managing financial security risks is disclosed, including the problems of their identificationand assessment, as well as the features of their prevention, minimization of consequences and liquidation; the system of bodies authorized to manage risks is also studied.
The multilevel analysis of the legal regulation of the most acute issues of financial security risk management, from acts of local self-government bodies, regional and federal Russian legislation to international and foreign acts, makes this study unique. Preserving the scientific continuity laid down in the first book — the Institutes of Financial Security, special attention is paid to the consideration of financial security risks in its separate spheres: budgetary, tax and public banking systems, the system of monetary circulation, the sphere of gold and foreign currency reserves, financial markets, and the monograph supplemented by a study of risks in such areas as compulsory state social insurance, circulation of precious metals and precious stones, anti-money laundering.
For scientific workers, practicing lawyers and economists, officials of state and municipal bodies, teachers, graduate students, students of law schools studying in the legal and economic specialties, with in depth study of the problems of ensuring financial security and financial and legal support for the state.
Academic mobility is one of the crucial concepts in contemporary education, which demonstrates global processes in education sphere. Internationalisation of education, which is irrevocably linked to the concept of academic mobility, had risen to prominence in the last 30 years along with globalisation processes.
De Groof J. and Willems K., Law and Higher Education in the Flemish Community, in Cheol Shin J. and Nuno Teixeira P. (eds.), Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Springer, 2017. (Forthcoming).
The identification and support of talented students is one of the priorities of educational policy in the Russian Federation. There is currently a wide range of regulatory legal acts aimed at organizing work and support for students who have demonstrated outstanding ability. This article considers both direct support for talented students such as scholarships, and indirect measures: improving educators’ professional skills, developing model programs for general education, creating information portals to support talented students, etc.
The study explores the main methods that are used to identify gifted students at both foreign and Russian schools: academic competitions, earned grades, the administration of special tests, and teacher opinions about the individual academic performance of their students. The authors note that none of the criteria are universally used insofar as it is impossible to provide a perfect formal measure of student talent that can identify students who think outside the box and have unique skills but who do poorly on standardized tests during the educational process. It is argued that to more effectively identify talented youth, we should use all of the methods taken as a whole without preferring any single approach to another one. The article also analyzes the main tools that are used to support talented students: scholarships and grants, preferential admission at universities, enrollment at special schools for gifted children and K–11 schools associated with universities, special classes, extracurricular studies and summer schools, and special centers for gifted children. Particular attention is paid to how special educational programs and methods for working with gifted children should be implemented at schools and to how teachers should work with parents and teacher assistants. The article provides a retrospective analysis of the measures that the Government of the Russian Federation has used since 1999 to identify and support gifted students. The authors conclude that the current laws that regulate this area are fairly contradictory. They frequently fail to specify the mechanisms that should be used to implement the provisions of the program documents.
De Groof J. and Willems K., Systems and Institutions, in Cheol Shin J. and Nuno Teixeira P. (eds.), Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Springer, 2017. (Forthcoming).
In the world there are not many countries with the secular nature of education. The Russian legislation establishes secular nature of education in state and municipal schools. Secular nature of education in Russia is visible in the regulation of school uniforms and teaching «The Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics» at school. The article contains the analysis of the regional acts educational organization’s acts on school uniform and jurisprudence. Also the article contains the results of research on the second aspect of the secular nature of education in Russia – the subject «The Fundamentals of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics» established by Federal State Educational Standards. The authors conclude that the general education in Russia is not completely secular in several aspects. Further development of jurisprudence, legislation or education system can change the situation: religious aspects could be included in school life or more strictly settle the secular nature of school education.
Financial law aspects of school autonomy in Russian are analyzed in this article. The main research question: does the founder have the opportunity to influence on school curriculum. At present, such influence is possible within the framework of the participation of representatives of founders in the work of the governing councils of schools in accordance with the legislation on education. However, as the analysis of a number of normative legal acts of the subjects of the Russian Federation and local self-government bodies showed, the influence of the founder is possible during the approval of the state (municipal) assignment. The educational program contains a set of indicators that have a value expression, and in fact is an expanded version of the state (municipal) assignment. In turn, the state (municipal) assignment, and accordingly, budget resources are formed by the subject of the Russian Federation and the municipal bodies on the basis of departmental lists of services. This situation creates a basis for violating the autonomy of schools in Russia in the issue of determining school curricular and is embedded in the internal contradiction between the law on education and budget legislation.
The article discusses the changes in labor relations between the scientific and teaching staff and educational institutions of higher education concerning with the providing of an effective contract. Particular attention is paid to the definition of criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the scientific and teaching staff. The author notes that the system of evaluating the effectiveness of scientific and teaching workers should be based on several groups of clear criteria, including the weight of every criterion in points or other units. Effective contract system should be based solely on the merits of the system, rather than penalties. Irrelevant or subjective criteria, such as the students’ ratings, fellow ratings volume of funds attracted to the university cannot be taken into consideration. We analyze the procedure for determining the remuneration in accordance with the effective contracts. With the introduction of effective contract the structure of rewards of academic staff remains the same and includes guarantied and stimulating parts, where the guarantied part of the remuneration is much smaller. “Stimulus” to comply the effective contract should be created through the indicators established in the relevant local acts of educational organizations of higher education.
Over de Europese Ziel en of er geen betoging hoeft op het Martelarenplein
This book provides an encompassing analysis of the position of religion in education in several countries across the globe. It fi rst analyses the wider issues and complexities surrounding the position of freedom of religion or belief in education systems and the need to respect, protect and promote the religious or (non-religious) beliefs of all those involved and participating in education. Various specifi c themes are constantly at the foreground, namely: the religious distinctiveness of private schools, the protection of religious and belief diversity in education, the protection of parental rights and religious freedoms, the protection of children’s rights and religious freedoms and managing the dissemination of religious knowledge in public schools. Secondly, this book provides important case studies explaining the various approaches pertaining to the reconciliation of law and state, religion and education and secularism and diversity that exist in the world. A more encyclopedic approach is followed and provides insights, through the country case studies, into the contemporary issues surrounding religious and non-religious schools in these selected jurisdictions.
From 18 to 21 November 2015, in the Vatican, the Congregation for Catholic Education celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration Gravissimum Educationis and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Apostolic Constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae. As part of these celebrations, the Congregation aimed to re-energise the Catholic Church’s commitment to education by means of a World Congress entitled ‘Educating Today and Tomorrow: A Renewing Passion’. The main aim of the Congress was to re-energise the role of Catholic schools and universities that act in the name of the Universal Church. The Congress urged more than 5,000 participants to step up efforts to promote dialogue in times of spiritual poverty, self-referential exclusiveness, harmful spread of ideological viewpoints, and the lowering of the general level of culture.
In line with the aims of the Congress, and under its hospitable auspices, the European Association for Education Law and Policy (ELA) held a special conference. The ELA sessions within the larger Congress focussed mainly on the re-consideration of the role that religion plays in education in general. The main concern of this legal panel, therefore, was the way religious studies, the rights of believers, and non-believers are accommodated in both secular and confessional schools and universities around the world. Thus, the ELA sessions encompassed the transformation and renewal of religion in education in general (not only Catholic education), across various sectors of society.
This issue is a compilation of papers presented at ELA sessions in the Vatican. The papers presented at the ELA sessions were submitted to double blind peer review processes and only the best accepted and selected. The editors are already in possession of a full draft of the manuscript. This draft has been extensively edited for language and coherency already. The contributions composing this issue provide an all-encompassing analysis of the position of religion in education across the globe and how religious distinctiveness in education can be promoted. This volume deals, first, with overarching concepts of accommodating religious distinctiveness at schools and understanding the place of religion in compulsory instruction. Second, it provides important case studies explaining in much detail the various approaches to reconciliation of law and state, religion and education, secularism and diversity that exist in the world.
Although there are books about education and religion on the market, this volume focuses specifically on renewing a passion for protecting religious distinctiveness in increasingly secular societies. Emphasis is placed on how to achieve equality and religious freedom in democratic societies, while focusing on protecting the human dignity of religious adherents (parents and learners/children) through the protection of their religious distinctiveness. The manuscript also compiles the work of several academic experts in law and education and several expert practitioners in law and education (deans, ministers of education etc). The wide spectrum of countries discussed (USA, Europe, Australia, South Africa, South America) provide a holistic picture of religious distinctiveness across the globe. Practical suggestions towards maintaining religious distinctiveness are also provided. What is even more unique is the fact that the manuscript presents various and competing perspectives on religious distinctiveness.
