He believes that one more month of rest will allow young people to go on vacation in September or get a temporary job. The deputy believes that the experiment to extend the summer for students could first be "tested" on students in the Far East, in the Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories.

The parliamentarian put forward an initiative to Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana. RIA Novosti writes about it.

“As a deputy of the State Duma, I often hold meetings with schoolchildren and students throughout Russia. During communication, proposals are often heard from both students and teachers about the need to extend the summer holidays until October 1, "the deputy noted.

In his address to Golikova, the deputy said that the teaching load of pupils and students is now very high, since in June young people take exams, and this takes almost the whole month. Therefore, there are only two months left for rest.

In addition, many schoolchildren and students work in the summer, and the extension of the holidays, according to the deputy, will allow them to get additional work experience, since employers prefer to hire young people who already have work experience.

Therefore, the extension of summer holidays for one more month will partially solve the problem of accumulating practical experience and consolidate the theoretical knowledge of young people.

Also, one more free month will have a beneficial effect on the development of tourism in Russia, since it will allow our residents to visit the southern resorts of the Krasnodar Territory and Crimea in September,

when the weather is comfortable there, Vlasov believes.

Summer vacation in Russia is 8 weeks. But there are countries where they are longer. For example, in the United States, they last 12 weeks, from early June to late September. There are only 180 school days a year. A similar rule applies in the UK, but it can vary - different schools have different rules. Private schools may shorten the rest time by adding more time to class. In Turkey, the summer vacation lasts 14 weeks.

But there are no general rules about the duration of the holidays. Indeed, there are countries where the holidays are shorter. In France, vacations last less than two months. In Brazil, summer holidays are about 1.5 months: from mid-December to the end of January.

It is also worth adding that in many countries there are so-called spring breaks, which coincide with the celebration of Easter, and they can be quite long. In some countries, up to one month.

Earlier, a State Duma deputy, deputy chairman of the education committee made a proposal to introduce "first September capital" in Russia. The essence of the idea is to compensate parents for the costs of getting their child to school if they exceed 25% of the total family income.

According to his calculations, the minimum cost of a “schoolboy's kit” in Russia is 11.4 thousand rubles.

At the same time, the deputy took into account the costs only for the things that are most necessary for the student. But in addition to the obligatory purchases, there are a lot of additional purchases, which also significantly affect the family budget. According to VTsIOM, the real cost of collecting a student is no less than 21 thousand rubles.

Half of this amount, about 10 thousand rubles, is the cost of purchasing school uniforms, sportswear for physical education lessons and replacement shoes. This is how the respondents from Russia answered the question about the structure of their expenses for collecting a child to school. Another 2.5 thousand rubles are spent on average on the purchase of a backpack or briefcase. Writing materials and other stationery cost about the same (2.7 thousand). And also 2.4 thousand should be pledged for textbooks and notebooks.

In addition, many parents named “voluntary-compulsory” expenses among the compulsory expenses. These include all kinds of contributions for the repair / security / needs of the school (1.2 thousand rubles), voluntary donations (1 thousand rubles) and gifts to teachers (908 rubles).

The Ministry of Education and Science discusses the possibility of returning the "fifth quarter" to schools

The Ministry of Education and Science is considering the idea of ​​shortening the duration of summer school vacations. Officials claim that the parents literally bombarded the department with complaints. Moms and dads are indignant: their children hang out and spoil their eyes at computers for three whole months. We could study! Well, or work. Indeed, in addition to the educational component, the ministry is also discussing the idea of ​​returning labor summer schools to use. Will a short vacation really help schoolchildren not to go all out? Will the child's psyche withstand the increase in stress? How do the teachers themselves feel about the fact that they will not have time to really take a break from their wards? “MK” tried to figure out the situation.

“We have the longest summer holidays in the world!” - says Anastasia Zyryanova, director of the department of state policy in the field of general education of the Ministry of Education and Science. And he adds: not only long, but also stupid. Children wander around the streets, and their brains atrophy. As a result, by the first of September, everything that the teacher carefully invested (or with difficulty crammed) into it during the last academic year is completely erased from the student's head. In addition, in the era of gadgets and the ubiquitous Internet, over the summer, the guys manage to plant their eyesight and return to their desks in the fall with glasses. Parents, as they say in the ministry, themselves are no longer happy with the three-month rest of their children. You can track the first grader. But what if the "baby" is already 15 years old, the mother has only a month's vacation, and there are no grandparents?

The department sees a way out in a radical revision of the vacation period. Anticipating reproaches from skeptics, officials immediately pulled a trump card from their sleeves: they had never had a rest in the USSR for so long! Back in the 30s of the last century, the People's Commissariat of Education established the so-called "fifth quarter". Everything so that schoolchildren get involved in the all-Union industrialization process. Until the 1970s, in the summer, the guys had to work either in factories or on personal plots. Starting in the 1980s, this practice gradually faded away, but the long holidays remained.

However, officials seem to be not going to take away from schoolchildren a month or even a month and a half of their free life with one stroke of the pen. “We need research and methodological recommendations so that we can make sound management decisions and understand whether this is right or wrong - the longest vacation in the world,” Zyryanova said.

However, both teachers and representatives of the parental community, without waiting for any research and methods, have already announced: this is wrong. Vacations should be shortened, loads should be increased!

“One month needs to be filled with developmental programs,” says Elena Beshkinskaya, rector of the International Business School. “On the basis of schools, city camps can be set up where children could engage in creative projects, sports, discussing films and visiting theaters.” In addition, the guys themselves can split into interest groups. Someone glues model airplanes, someone bakes cakes. The main thing is not to sit all day at home, burying their noses in gadgets with games and social networks. “For high school students, you can offer work practice, socially useful work - helping the elderly and the disabled,” adds Beshkinskaya.

But social activists from the parents have not yet developed a clear position, it seems. The executive director of the national parenting association Larisa Sanatovskaya is sure that now is the time for all parents to turn on their activity to the maximum and participate in the discussion. “You can write directly to the ministry, or you can use us (the Association) as a platform,” says Sanatovskaya. “We will collect all the positions and convey them to the representatives of the department.” However, at the same time, for some reason, the Association is sure in advance that the Ministry of Education and Science will make a correct, objective and viable decision.

But child psychologists are not so optimistic at all. According to the MPPGU professor, head of the laboratory for educational strategies for the development of giftedness, candidate of psychological sciences Viktoria Yurkevich, the idea of ​​reducing the vacation itself is undoubtedly correct. “In three months, children completely drop out of mental activity, lower their level,” Yurkevich is sure, “Holidays have now become fun.” However, before “cutting off” the holidays, it is necessary to completely rebuild the educational process and change the system of distribution of the school load. "Now children during the school year are extremely overworked in terms of the volume of tasks, and in the summer they do absolutely nothing," the professor complains. In order for the new system with short vacations to work smoothly and not harm the health of children, a qualitatively new learning scheme is needed. So, in the summer, the child should be free in the choice of activities. No obligation. If he wants, he is engaged in macrome, he wants to - he attends an architectural circle. The main thing is to keep him busy. But the load should come strictly from the requests of the student himself, and not from the wishes of parents or teachers. And you shouldn't overload either. Once or twice a week is enough. In addition, in the summer, you need to forget about the grades. According to psychologists, this is the time when the brain should be focused only on the result: the built radio-controlled airplane flew - well done. Do not fly - redo it. But no twos and diaries. Well, in the school year, it is necessary to reduce the volume of homework, increasing their difficulty. So the child's head will constantly work, but at the same time he will not sit for four hours at homework. Psychologists are sure that only by adopting such a new system, we can talk about a reduction in vacations. Otherwise, the children will clearly gain nothing from the reform. Unless the parents' nerves will be healthier. The child seems to be in business, does not stagger the streets.

“If under the current education system it is easy to take and shorten the vacation period, then it’s better to leave everything as it is,” Yurkevich is sure, “The less bad, the better!”

Summer vacations exist in most countries of the world, but the duration of summer vacations varies from country to country - from three weeks in South Korea to three months in the USA, Italy, Latvia and Russia.

There is a popular opinion that long summer vacations are a consequence of the agrarian past, when adults in the summer needed the help of children in the field. However, some historians believe that there is insufficient evidence for this opinion.

There are some experts who believe that a very long study break has significant disadvantages.

In one of the southern states of the United States, researchers compared the test results of schoolchildren aged 7 to 15 years for 2008-12. These were tests that were carried out at the end of the school year and the beginning of the next one.

Scientists have come to the conclusion that, on average, over the summer holidays, American children forget more than a quarter of the material they studied in the previous year.

At the same time, the same trend is observed in countries where summer vacations are shorter than in the United States.

The head of the National Summer Schooling Association (USA), Matthew Boleigh, called summer vacation the period of the year when there is the greatest inequality between rich and poor children.

Children from poor families forget more over the summer than their peers from rich families.

Wealthy parents can make up for their child's educational deficiencies with a tutor or summer camp, while poor families find it more difficult to afford such a thing. Some of them have to stand in long lines to enroll a child in a free sports section.

For many families, summer holidays are financially challenging.

In countries where children receive free school meals during the school year, families spend more on food during the summer. Families with both parents have to hire someone to look after the child during the holidays.

Natasha Cochram, the head of the summer program at a primary school in Wales, worries that many children spend most of their time at home in front of the TV during the summer. In her opinion, this is due to the fact that parents cannot afford to provide them with active leisure, but at the same time do not want to allow them to walk unattended.

Benjamin Piper, a researcher at the RTI International research institute, believes that the problem of loss of knowledge gained during the academic year can manifest itself even more seriously in developing countries, where it is largely neglected and not studied.

Experts offer several ways to solve the problems caused by long summer vacations:

  • increase the length of the school year,
  • to postpone part of the summer holidays to other periods of the year,
  • provide more government-run summer activities for schoolchildren.

The first approach is most fundamentally used by South Korea, where summer vacations last only three weeks. This is the world's shortest summer vacation.

Of course, South Korean students achieve excellent results in international student assessment programs. But compared to children from other rich countries, they do it at the cost of constant rote memorization and more mental health problems.

An argument against stretching the academic year is the need to increase budgetary expenditures. Teachers will no doubt be against this approach unless they receive a pay raise.

Some consider the second approach optimal, with a reduction in summer and lengthening the rest of the vacation. In particular, the director of the Cadoxton school, Janet Hayward, proposes to reduce summer vacations in the UK from six to four weeks and reallocate the remaining two weeks to other seasons.

Mr. Boley, on the other hand, doubts that such changes will have a significant effect on the preservation of the passed material in the memory of children. All over the world, summer holidays are ingrained in tradition, and year round education has not yet proven its effectiveness.

Instead of reshaping the holidays, Mr. Boleigh proposes to provide funding for summer activities for schoolchildren from taxpayers and philanthropists.

In his opinion, in the summer, schoolchildren should develop skills that are not included in the school curriculum.

Some governments are interested in helping parents during the summer holidays.

For example, the UK Department of Education has announced a £ 2m ($ 2.54m) budget for children's summer events and catering. Hungary has expanded its program to provide children with meals during the summer holidays. And in the United States, activists did not allow the government of the country to cancel state funding for children's activities during the summer holidays.

Translation by Anna Shivrina

Approximately at the end of each academic year (and it will be soon) or, on the contrary, before September 1, all sorts of incomprehensible initiatives appear. Like "let's postpone the beginning of the school year?" or once again we will discuss what to do with the structure of the academic year (quarters, trimesters).

But there is one proposal that does not seem absurd to me and which I even support and am ready to discuss - to shorten the summer holidays at school.

Now school summer holidays do not coincide with our modern life. Why are the three-month vacations in general? In Russia, the absolutely agrarian-industrial structure of the academic year has been preserved. Previously, summer holidays were needed so that children could help their parents, grandparents in agricultural production or in the country, in the countryside. I remember how I myself was floated for the summer to the village, to dig potatoes, and then to Moscow to study. That is, this is such an absolutely Soviet story. And a good story. There were tremendous breakthroughs in education and science at that time. But the education system itself was tailored precisely to the agricultural production cycle.

Now life has changed. It changed quickly and intensively. And we already live in a metropolis, and Russia has become a country of cities. Urbanization continues, people are less and less involved in agriculture. And children are less often sent to their grandmother in the village.

And what do we get in the summer? A crowd of children and adolescents that parents really have nowhere to put

Parents can have a two-week vacation, and if they are lucky with the employer, they will be given a month. But then the children still need to be occupied with something. Parents begin to come up with some activities, send their children to camps. But usually because of this, parents have even more worries: is the camp good, how is the safety there, what the children will do there, and so on. And it is corny that not everyone has the material opportunities to send a child to a camp. And it turns out that many children stay in the city and are left to their own devices.

Of course, they can object to me and say that during long vacations, children have the only opportunity to rest. No, it’s not like that. In my opinion, even distribution of the program will reduce the workload on schoolchildren during the week. That is, if we shorten the holidays for the children, the load on them, oddly enough, will decrease, not increase.

Yes, the Russian school has a very intensive program and high workloads due to the compact academic year - only 34 academic weeks. At the same time, there are many vacation intermediate links (those who study in terms of trimesters have the most of them). We watched how our foreign colleagues work and study. They often study less in time - they do not have so many lessons, for example, the seventh and eighth. As a result, children are released at 13.00 or 14.00. This is followed by additional optional classes (optional). Children have the opportunity to read, relax. True, children abroad usually begin to study earlier, and parents go to work earlier. But in general, the family can meet for dinner and discuss how the day went, not at our usual 21.00, but at 18.00-19.00. This is what strengthens the family.

And besides, the school actually works in June anyway. Although junior grades are often asked: "What are you doing in the summer, we are not there?" There is no less work during the holidays, it's just different. There are exams, electives, sometimes camps are organized at schools, or now there are Moscow shifts (they are also called the "fifth quarter"), and so on.

Teachers have a fairly long vacation - 56 days. Nevertheless, even in this situation, without stepping on the social guarantees of teachers, a system of study with reduced vacations can be correctly built.

Therefore, in my opinion, the issue of reducing vacations should be raised and discussed, despite all the fears that children will not have time to relax and long vacations are their only opportunity.

In other countries, as a rule, summer vacations last less than in Russia, and foreign students study longer and longer. For example, in France, the number of school days is less than in our country, but there children study for 12 years. And in Italy, summer vacations last as long as in Russia, but at the same time Italian schoolchildren study two years more.

Other vacations in foreign schools can also be very different from ours. For example, French schoolchildren, apart from the Christmas holidays in December, which last two weeks, also have holidays in February, which are also two weeks. And in Germany, in some schools, children have two vacations not only in winter, but also in spring: first there are Easter holidays in March – April (from 6 to 17 days), and then spring ones in May – June (up to 11 days).