Double Shock to the Education System

Konstantin Nemanov

Summary

The Ministry of Education failed to retain control over the education system, which was exposed to the double shock of the COVID-19 pandemic and mass post-election protests. Focusing on securing the desired result of the presidential election, it ignored popular demand for safe learning amid the pandemic, and gave up the initiative to other education actors.

In the face of the growing political crisis, the authorities failed to neutralize the discontent of education system stakeholders or to adjust education policy. Although the attempt to suppress students’ protests through unprecedented administrative repressions and psychological pressure was successful in terms of reducing the scale of explicit protests, it stimulated growth of self-awareness and self-organization of students’ communities and the emergence of subversive academic resistance.

Trends:

Introduction

The year 2020 began with a very sensitive blow to the international reputation of Belarusian education. The PISA (Programme for International Students Assessment) results displayed the enormous social inequality in accessing quality secondary education. In the Index of Academic Freedom, Belarus ranked between Libya and Sudan.1 The Ministry of Education demonstratively ignored this assessment, and continued to shamelessly extol successes both domestically and internationally. Education stakeholders seemed to get used to that and adapt themselves to this bureaucratic hypocrisy. The COVID-19 pandemic and the post-election protests exploded the system and turned it into a field of clash of antagonistic values and academic resistance to repressive practices and administrative arbitrariness.

First shock: COVID-19

The government had no coherent strategy whatsoever to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in educational institutions, so the safety issue got politicized since the very beginning of the pandemic. The Education Ministry, expectedly, turned out to be demoralized and unable to think out a consistent line of action. Under the pressure of public sentiment on the one hand, and Alexander Lukashenko’s extravagant coronavirus denial escapades on the other, officials got lost in their own instructions and fell into the gravest sin of the Belarusian bureaucracy: they lost control over the education system. A terrifying nightmare for all Belarusian ministers, the loss of control manifested itself in the decision of students, their parents and even university rectors to independently establish procedures for conducting classes.

The situation was out of control as early as the beginning of March. Although quarantine was not officially imposed, universities began rewriting class schedules and putting off lectures, while many students’ parents chose home schooling. The Health Ministry was hopelessly tardy with recommendations, the COVID-19 incidence rate was on the rise, and no one dared to declare a quarantine.

The Education Ministry was at a loss, deciding whether to make a break for holidays, for how long, and what to do next. This hesitancy lasted until March 30, and no one had the heart to interrupt the scheduled spring break. This went on until Lukashenko ordered to end the three-week break and to bring everyone back to schools. However, according to official data, only 30% to 40% of children returned to schools. The threat to deny grade progression to the non-attenders had no effect, so the Education Ministry had to relax its stance.

Attempts to organize distance learning failed as well. Deputy Minister Irina Starovoitova claimed that 99% of educational institutions in Belarus had access to the Internet, and 85% of the teachers had been trained to use information technologies, but this turned out to be untrue. Then the question came up: on what millions of rubles intended for state IT penetration and digitalization programs in education had been spent?2

A petition was filed on April 25 to dismiss Minister of Education Igor Karpenko for his inability to organize distance learning for schoolchildren and students, ensure their safety, allow home-schooled students to receive grades, take steps to overcome the digital divide, etc.3

The ministry had nothing to say, basically, except that there were no regulations on distance education in Belarus, so the ministry could hardly be blamed for that. That was true, since the development of the regulatory framework for e-learning has been paralyzed since 2007. The legalization of distance education has been addressed regularly since the 2013 education reform hearings in the National Assembly, but nothing has been so far signed into law.

In 2019, the Republican Council of Rectors asked to amend ministerial instructions on online education and grading of students’ performance, but in vain, so the Belarusian education system faced the COVID-19 pandemic totally unprepared. In order to somehow quell the worries, the Education Ministry promised to work out a unified online platform for distance learning by the end of 2020, which it, apparently, could not do without legislative backing. It will become clear in 2021 what this promise is worth, considering that similar promises have been made more than once. In the meantime, those involved in the online education process have to deal with the amateurism of untrained and overburdened teachers and equally unprepared students.

The pandemic came as a challenge not only for Belarus, but the leadership of the Belarusian educational system stood out for the amazing illogicalness of its actions. In the heat of the pandemic, it was decided not to conduct the centralized testing distantly, but to just push it back for two weeks. The ministry did not ban prom-night parties and graduation ceremonies. Calls for a quarantine were rudely rejected, probably, in an attempt to regain control over the education system.

Several members of the Youth Bloc, who were detained during an action of protest against the coercion of students to participate in mass festive events to celebrate the Victory Day (May 9) were the first victims of repression. Minsk State Linguistic University student Liza Prokopchik was expelled, which was the first case in the chain of subsequent arrests and expulsions of university students and faculty members.

The Education Ministry responded to the second wave of the pandemic with recommendations to increase the number of breaks between classes, to wash hands, and to maintain social distancing. Another petition to switch to distance learning because of the high coronavirus incidence and unrealistic recommendations was answered the same way: distance learning was not stipulated by law.4 Let the world perish, but the law is the law.

No one is obliged to speed up the long-drawn-out legalization of distance education amid the pandemic. Moreover, the Prosecutor’s Office threatened to punish parents for home schooling. And still some parents kept their children at home. According to official data, 86% percent of pupils returned to school after the autumn break.

The situation with the transition to distance learning at universities was different. Although there was no overall strategy, some universities partly switched to online learning, and even practiced distance performance grading, but this was done by individual faculty members, depending on the preparedness of the academic staff and perseverance of students.

In general, the experience of distance learning was disappointing due to the technological and pedagogical unpreparedness of professors, the lack of adapted content, appropriate organization and technical capabilities.

Students were not ready for the effective use of modern information technologies either. Attempts to remedy the situation could not be effective due to the absence of a coherent strategy, tardiness and the modest scale. Not only the ministry, but the entire education system suffered a defeat.

Second shock: protests

Presumably, the impotence and indifference of the Education Ministry was due to the fact that a pandemic response was not a priority. The emphasis was put on the presidential election, in which teachers have traditionally played a leading role, sitting in election commissions.

The growing tension and discontent among most education stakeholders before the election prompted the government to seek ways to appease and make up to its traditional allies, but there was no money to extinguish the discontent this time, so only promises were to be satisfied with.

At the June 29 meeting with educators, Lukashenko promised to raise teachers’ salaries to 150% of the national average within the next five years, provide dormitories to 100% of students in need of accommodation, and to ensure access to higher education for residents of rural areas and socially vulnerable groups.5 In exchange, teachers were required to step up morale building.

These promises were disavowed almost immediately after the election. Decree No. 27 on salaries of employees of state-financed organizations actually cut the real salaries paid to teachers. The promise to amend the university admission rules in favor of rural youngsters was buried at the elaboration and approval stage before the next admission period. The Education Ministry said that no significant changes to the admission rules were planned before 2023. Military personnel with recommendations from their commanders were the only category of applicants who received advantages.

Promises turned to be insufficient to neutralize the protest sentiment in the education system after the August 9 presidential election and, especially, after the brutal crackdown on protesters. In response to the involvement of teachers in the election rigging, parents, students and graduates showed disappointment and indignation, and threatened to boycott classes.

The country’s leadership took the possible loss of control over pupils quite seriously. On September 4, the Prosecutor’s Office threatened the parents who intended to switch to home schooling with “socially dangerous consequences”, and the Education Ministry tightened requirements to private schools. Early in the year, the authorities tried to integrate the latter into the system, while after the election, private schools began to be tormented with numerous inspections and license revocation threats, which, in the Belarusian environment, means total bureaucratic arbitrariness. The 17 private secondary schools with 1,353 pupils hardly posed a threat to the public school system, but it was necessary to suppress popular demand for independent education.

Protests at universities were larger in scale and better organized than at secondary schools. Thousands of students and faculty members signed a petition, demanding that the violence is stopped, detainees are released, and a new election is called. However, the peaceful demonstrations were not numerous. According journalists’ estimates, one to two thousand students out of almost 100,000 full-time students in Minsk participated in a rally on September 1. At first, administrations of some universities tried to avoid a conflict with the protesters, and even contributed to the release of detainees, but enunciations, intimidation, expulsions of students and firing of unwanted teachers began shortly after.

Criminal prosecution and administrative arrests were applied for the first time on a large scale alongside the unprecedented massive academic repression: 418 students were detained, 103 were put under administrative arrests for up to 114 days, 65 were fined, 30 were jailed on criminal charges, and 5 were sentenced to 1.5 to 4 years in prison; 106 cases of reprisals against university lecturers, including arrests, fines, dismissals, and forced resignations, were registered. Nine rectors who were not active enough in suppressing students’ protests were fired.6

The atmosphere of terror in universities was supplemented with threats to stop academic exchanges with Western universities, deny the recognition of foreign degrees, restrict graduate migration, tighten the forced post-graduate job placement, etc.

Resistance

In 2020, along with the negative revision of the Bologna commitments of Belarus, there were noticeable changes in the growing interest and sympathy for fundamental academic values, self-organization and resistance by academic communities to repressive ideological and administrative practices. In fact, there was an intense struggle between conservative and repressive policies of university administrations and the attempts to promote some Bologna values and reforms with a risk to academic careers and personal safety.

This struggle was vivid in 15 universities, where strike committees and cells of the Free Trade Union of Belarus were appointed. Students were leaving the Belarusian Republican Youth Union and joining the Union of Belarusian Students and the national student association formed on its basis.

The international reaction to the repression in Belarusian universities was contradictory. A number of international organizations continued cooperating with the Belarusian Education Ministry. In November 2020, the EHEA Ministerial Conference did not adopt a resolution condemning academic repression in Belarus because of Russia’s interference. Nevertheless, the repression was condemned by the co-chairs of the Bologna Follow-Up Group (BFUG), the European Association of Universities, the European Union of Students, and many European countries. Neither UNICEF, nor the World Bank, which gave a USD 100 million loan for the higher education modernization, refused to cooperate with the Belarusian Education Ministry.

At the same time, the scale of academic solidarity was unprecedented. Six German universities joined the program to support repressed students and faculty members. They stated their readiness to accept more than 150 students for free education and subsidize internships.

The Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange and the Polish Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools awarded scholarships to nearly 900 Belarusian nationals for studying at 73 universities of Poland. The Education Ministry of the Czech Republic announced that it would support Belarusian students that would study at 11 universities of the country. Romania accepts 100 Belarusian students in 13 universities. The state will fully cover the tuition, living expenses, and scholarships. Norway accepts 23 students under postgraduate programs. Lithuanian universities took part in support programs for repressed Belarusian academicians and students. Vytautas Magnus University of Kaunas awarded 50 scholarships, and the Vilnius University also provides scholarships to Belarusian students. The Lithuanian government decided to allocate EUR 200,000 to support Belarusian students admitted to the Vilnius-based European Humanities University.

Conclusion

Two events shaped the Belarusian education system in 2020: the COVID-19 response and the post-election shocks. One of them would be enough to shake the whole system. Combined, they drove Belarus into the past, and, more importantly, into a reality that no one has experience to live in.

The scale of confrontation, arbitrariness, repression, and absurdity is unprecedented. At the same time, the profound and unbearable humiliation has produced the biggest ever rise of self-awareness and self-organization of the academic community, leading to the emergence of university resistance. The contours of this new reality are just beginning to take shape. It is very likely that post-crisis education policy will be determined by a latent confrontation between the state-run and independent schools (both secondary and tertiary).

The legal arbitrariness of the authorities has untied the hands of alternative education and freed it from the need to constantly justify its existence and beg for permission to maintain at least its marginal status. And now, new education enjoys all the benefits of cross-border information technologies.