Patriotism and traditional values will become official requirements for all school textbooks in Russia

Patriotism and traditional values will become official requirements for all school textbooks in Russia

The Ministry of Education has included patriotism, spiritual values, and “countering destructive ideology” in the criteria for reviewing all school textbooks. The corresponding draft order was published on the legal acts draft portal on May 18, as noted by Verstka.

The changes are planned to be made to the procedure for forming the federal list of textbooks, which is approved by the ministry. Seven of the 35 main current criteria have been revised, and two new ones have been added.

Whereas previously textbooks were supposed to promote motivation to learn, as well as the development of intellectual, project-based, and creative skills, now these requirements are being supplemented with the upbringing of schoolchildren “in a spirit of respect for traditional spiritual and moral values”.

The point concerning the attitudes to be formed in schoolchildren has also been expanded. In addition to the principles of the rule of law, freedom, and public safety, textbooks will now have to promote the formation of “patriotism, civic unity, and interreligious accord based on traditional values.”

A separate new criterion directly establishes that textbooks must correspond to state policy aimed at strengthening the role of traditional values in students’ consciousness and at countering some “destructive ideology.”

In the current version of the procedure for forming textbooks, family values are directly mentioned in only one of the criteria and amount to a ban on denying them, as well as on promoting “non-traditional sexual relations.”

The rules emphasize that the methodological council will not include a textbook in the federal list if it receives a low score on even one of the criteria.

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