In the State Duma I represent the interests of Nizhnekamsk in the Republic of Tatarstan. This is a small town with a population of around 235,000, of which roughly 40,000 work in the chemicals industry. Given this specialization, I immediately took an interest in how well Nizhnekamsk’s schools are provided with physics and chemistry equipment. Alas, even the town’s oldest school (No.1, named after N.M.Maximov) was a disappointment. The classroom equipment was obsolete, there were problems with the lighting and heating, and in the floors in the assembly and sports halls were rotten. And in fact, the inventory in the sports hall was also old and decrepit…
The headmaster wrote to me asking for help raising funds for the school under the national Education Project. We (my assistants and I) studied this closely and immediately submitted two deputy’s requests. Less than a month later we got reply from two ministries – the Russian and Tatarstan Ministries of Education and Science. Unfortunately, they declined to provide funding for renovation of the school building, as this is not their responsibility and is not a focus area for the Education Project. I was advised to raise the issue with the local municipal and district governments.
On the other hand, I did manage to get some funding to equip the school’s physics classroom, as the Education Project does specifically cover teaching equipment. As a result, 450,000 roubles have been allocated for modernization of the physics classroom in Nizhnekamsk School No.1, and the tender to select an equipment supplier should be completed by the end of August. I really hope all the organizational issues can be sorted out by the start of the new academic year, so that on 1 September 2008 the kids will have a new modern physics classroom to learn in!