Russian schools will conduct an initial military preparation course starting next school year, in September 2023, Russian Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov announced today.
“It will start (the course) from the next school year, it will be prepared until January 1 and then its approval will be studied,” said the minister, quoted by the official Russian agency TASS.
The Russian Ministry of Defense supported the inclusion in the school program of an “initial military preparation” course, the deputy and leader of the ruling Just Russia party, Sergey Mironov, author of the initiative, said on his Telegram channel.
Mirónov expressed his conviction that the teaching of this subject “will allow citizens to be prepared in a planned manner for a possible confrontation with the enemy.”
In his opinion, not only tactics of combat actions should be taught in the course, but also “psychological work” should be carried out.
The deputy stressed that teachers must necessarily be “people with experience in combat, veterans of combat actions.”
“That is why, with the inclusion of this subject, we will give a real job to thousands of people who sincerely love the country, who know the theory and practice of conducting combat actions,” he added.
According to Mironov, all parliamentary groups in the State Duma support the initiative of its formation.
The Ministry of Defense, according to the Izvestia newspaper, is in favor of the initial military preparation course having a total of 140 hours and being taught to schoolchildren in the last two grades, aged 17 and 18.
The current school program, the press office of the Ministry of Education specified today, contemplates modules of initial military preparation within the subject “Basic concepts of security”.
In these classes, schoolchildren study the rights and obligations of citizens during conscription and compulsory military service, as well as the provision of first aid.
Initial military training in schools, in which students were taught to shoot Kalashnikov rifles and throw grenades, was compulsory in the Soviet Union between 1962 and the end of the 1980s, when the country of the Soviets was nearing its collapse.
Since last September, every Monday the school day in Russia begins with the national anthem and the raising of the flag, an innovation introduced by the authorities to promote patriotism.
In addition, education authorities have arranged for the school week to begin with a patriotism class called “Speaking of What Matters,” which critics see as mere “propaganda lessons.”
According to the script published by Education, for half an hour the tutors must promote national pride anchored in history, but also closely linked to the current military campaign in Ukraine, with texts, videos and songs.
Some professors have already denounced to the press that these classes do not promote patriotism, but servility towards the Russian leaders.