Belarusian teachers in search of the lost dignity of their craft
On 5 October, Belarus will celebrate World Teachers’ Day, established by UNESCO in 1994 to show appreciation for the teaching profession and to draw attention to the rights of educators worldwide.
Yet in today’s Belarus, teachers have no space for creativity and initiative, falling victim to the whims of the school administration, local educational departments, Ministry of Education, and even the Belarusian president’s son.
While Belarusian schools struggle to modernise, teachers’ rights and the prestige of the profession continue to deteriorate. As a result, Belarusian youth avoid choosing careers in education, and enrolment in teaching programmes at universities remains low. In addition to their ever-increasing paperwork, teachers in Belarus must act as social workers, renovation specialists, regime supporters, and even seasonal agricultural workers.
Racing for higher grades
A recent large-scale opinion survey among teachers and high-school students, conducted by the Research Center of the Institute for Privatization and Management (IPM), showed that Belarusian schools prefer to adhere to familiar, Soviet-inherited dogmas in education. They fail to equip their students with skills and competences, essential for today’s knowledge-based societies.
School administrations instruct teachers to uphold grades as a principal measure of students’ success, while local departments of education demand their constant growth. The focus dwells on quantitative aspects in education, rather than ensuring the individual progress of every single student. Learning by heart and reproducing textbook materials often come before developing creativity and critical thinking skills.
Each year, teachers have to deal with an increasing flow of paperwork, including lesson plans and reports on grades, activities, classes, and students. One recent novelty is electronic class registers, which teachers must update along with their paper-bound equivalents. As a rule, teachers have to use their own personal computers to fill the new registers out. Access to school computers remains limited and waiting wastes precious time.
Teachers are also responsible to ensure that all students buy lunches provided by school canteens. National sanitary norms stipulate that children must eat every 3.5–4 hours. If parents do not wish for their child to eat school-made lunches, the family has to offer an alternative solution for their child’s hot meal. Starting 2017, teachers were given the additional duty of administering electronic payments for school lunches on a daily basis.
Teacher or Jack-of-all-trades?
In addition to paperwork, teachers assume the job duties of a social worker. Schools often send them to inspect students’ living conditions, including the collection of information on parents’ income, the number of children in a family, and any religious affiliations. In spring 2017, teachers from several districts received orders to visit the addresses of all potential “social parasites” with a questionnaire to determine their status and to keep track of the unemployed.
Until late 2016, schools were sending underage students to help agricultural enterprises harvest potatoes. This tradition was technically forced child labour. The practice only stopped after last year’s potato harvest, which ended with the accidental and tragic death of a 13-year-old student. However, last week, Belarusian media outlets reported that authorities in the Pastavy district of Belarus’s Viciebsk region decided to use teachers as unqualified, cheap, potato-harvest labourers instead of students.
Moreover, deputy minister of education Raisa Sidarenka did not see any issue with this situation. She noted the teachers may have simply wanted to “aid [Belarusian] agriculture,” and were free to harvest potatoes alongside their professional duties.
The list of extracurricular headaches for teachers is long. It is their duty to ensure the timely renovation of the classrooms and to convince parents to pitch-in financially. Teachers are also obliged to subscribe to a number of state newspapers, ranging from the leading pro-regime newspaper Belarus Segodnia, to Zorka and Znamia Junosti for the students. Thus schools force teachers to create a market for media, which otherwise might not be in high demand.
Last but not least, when educational institutions serve as ballot stations during elections, the state intimidates school employees to become the instruments of stage-managed votes. Teachers thus become either passive onlookers or active perpetrators of election falsifications in Belarus. Opposition parties have been warning teachers of the immoral character of certain types of election practices, yet the majority of teachers are more concerned about keeping their jobs.
On 11 September 2017, Belarusian writer Jauheniia Pasternak wrote an open letter to the Ministry of Education and all local district administrations. Her aim was to draw attention to the falling standards of the school education and the lack of respect for teachers.
Over 9,000 people have already signed a petition endorsing better protection of school teachers’ rights, launched by Pasternak and her colleague Andrej Žvaleuski on change.org, an online petitioning platform. It identifies poor working conditions for teachers as the main problem for Belarusian education. Recent university graduates who start a teaching career can hope for $150 a month in the best case scenario, while an experienced teacher who takes on additional duties and extra classes can earn up to $350 a month.
The main improvements suggested by the petition involve reducing all existing paperwork loads down to class registers, establishing a five-day working week for teachers, and ensuring a coordinated curriculum without the frequent change of textbooks. The petition’s authors also suggest to unite school graduation exams with university entry examinations, in order to introduce clearer learning criteria for students. Hopefully, this will enable teachers to design more effective courses and lessons.
Finally, the petition demands that teachers should not be placed in conditions where they must lie or manipulate. For instance, school administrations often force teachers and their students to visit local unpopular sports events or concerts. The teachers cooperate as they are afraid to lose their jobs, while students visit these events in the hope of bargaining for higher grades.
The Ministry of Education reacted to Pasternak’s letter by dismissing all its critical points as irrelevant. Its press secretary, Liudmila Vysockaja, called the letter ridiculous, stating that “none of the issues required the attention of the ministry or [the Belarusian] president.”
As long as the Belarusian state maintains conservative command methods in education, teachers will have neither say over the question of their working rights, nor voice in the design of the education reforms. Pasternak’s letter did not reach its intended addressees, who chose to ignore it. Yet her letter does appear to have stirred up the stewing discontent among fellow teachers. Public debate of the schooling system could become a first step for teachers in their quest to return the lost dignity of their profession.
Is Belavezha Forest under threat from Poland?
Poland continues the mass logging of Belovezhskaya Pushcha (Belavezha Forest), one of the last reserves of primeval forest in Europe and a UNESCO heritage site. Despite a call from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to protect the forest, on 1 August Polish authorities stated they would continue to allow the cutting down of trees.
Belavezha Forest, the majority of which is situated in Belarus, has become a popular tourist destination in recent years. Despite this, in March 2016 Polish authorities granted logging firms the right to clear trees supposedly damaged by a bark beetle infestation.
In response, environmentalists initiated a protection campaign that continues to gain momentum on the Polish side of Belavezha Forest. Meanwhile, the Belarusian side remains ostensibly untouched. However, activists claim that Belarusian authorities have also allowed logging of the forest.
The Belarusian forest protection campaign has gone largely unnoticed—both at home and abroad. By contrast, the Polish Belavezha Forest campaign receives media attention, involves international stakeholders and pushes Polish authorities to take responsibility for logging projects.
What is going on in Belavezhskaya Pushcha?
At 140 hectares, Belavezhskaya Pushcha remains one of the largest ancient forests in Europe. The forest is famous for both its flora and fauna. In 1979 UNESCO included it on its World Heritage List. While the forest is situated on the territories of Poland and Belarus, the bulk of it sits within Belarus.
In March 2016, Polish environment minister Jan Szyszko approved a three stage logging programme in Poland’s forest territory. Later, Polish authorities also allowed the removal of trees damaged by bark beetles, insects that infest and destroy tree trunks. However, suspicions emerged that the Polish authorities might be allowing the cutting down of the forest for commercial rather than environmental reasons.
In May 2016, Polish environmental activists together with Greenpeace sent an open letter to the EU with a request to intervene and prevent further deforestation. A month after the activists’ appeal, the EU initiated an investigation into Poland’s deforestation of Belavezha Forest. UNESCO has also been following the situation closely on the Polish side of the forest.
In January 2017, both Poland and Belarus presented reports to UNESCO on Belavezha Forest. Polish authorities indicated an increasing number of bark beetle infested trees. At the same time, environmental activists argued that bark beetles are a natural part of the forest’s ecosystem and have minimal impact on the overall health of the forest.
Pending its final ruling, the ECJ has issued an interim decision in July 2017 ordering Polish authorities to halt all logging activities in the forest. The ECJ decision is in response to allegations that Poland is violating bloc wildlife protection laws and is endangering rare species of animals, birds, and plants.
Authorities in Poland have ignored the ECJ order. On 1 August 2017, minister Szyszko stated the logging would continue. If Poland loses the case in the ECJ final ruling, the country will have to pay a €4m fine and an additional €300,000 for each day of logging following the date of interim decision.
The case of Belavezhskaya Pushcha appears to be first time where Poland has so overtly violated EU law. “So far there is no case in which an interim measure of the court was not respected. If Polish authorities do not follow that decision, it will be a serious conflict with the EU law,” said a lawyer from ClientEarth, a non-profit environmental law agency, in an interview with the BBC.
The Fight for Belavezha Forest and Belarus’s Role
Immediately following the announcement of the logging programme, Polish civil society reacted with protests. Environmental activists formed human-chains and obstructed logging activities with their bodies. The largest demonstration was held on 24 May. Demonstration participants noted the logging must be commercial, rather than conservational, because scientists had been prevented from visiting Belavezha Forest to conduct tests, reports Green Belarus web site.
Despite the pressure, Polish activists continue to attract attention to the problem. US-based National Public Radio reports that activists had built a camp in the forest to keep up protest efforts and to track the progress of the logging. The activists claim that many of the trees logged have been healthy and untouched by bark beetles.
Greenpeace Poland Director Robert Cyglicki believes, “Claims by the Ministry of the Environment that only necessary logging is happening in compliance with the EU Court of Justice decision, is a lie. Our inspections clearly show that European law is being laughed at in one of Europe’s last remaining ancient forests. That’s why we’re asking the world to join our peaceful protesters who have come from all over Europe and stand against the destruction of our common heritage and demand its protection.”
All the media attention focused on the Polish side of Belavezha Forest might suggest the Belarusian side remains untouched and protected. However, the reality seems to be otherwise. In 2010, Belarusian environmentalists protested against violations of the preservation of Belavezha Forest by Belarusian authorities.
Activists have sent an open letter to the Council of Europe stating that Belarusian authorities have allowed the killing of bison in Belavezha Forest, reports Belavezhskaya Pushcha XXI vek, a webpage created to aid forest conservation efforts. Additionally, activists highlighted large-scale logging of the forest. A year earlier, environmentalists sent a letter to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka demanding the revision of logging policies in the forest. However, the letters have elicited no change in policy; Belarusian authorities have ignored the domestic campaign to protect Belavezha Forest.
By contrast, the scale of the campaign in Poland has forced the Polish government’s highest representatives to comment on logging in the forest. “We need to ensure that there is a healthy logging of trees, something that is planned. We only want to fell an area of 188,000 cubic metres. We want to protect priority habitats for the EU. We are trying to improve and correct the situation,” the Polish environment minister Jan Szyszko is cited saying in The Guardian.
Will Belavezha survive?
Belavezha Forest, which is included in Belarus’s visa-free territory, remains one of the reasons why tourists visit Belarus. In 2017 The Telegraph ranked Belavezha Forest 18th in the ranking of the best places to visit in Eastern Europe. However, Polish commercial interests, under the pretence of a bark beetle infestation, appear to be threatening one of Europe’s last ancient forests.
Environmentalists insist the Polish government is allowing the logging of Belavezha Forest for commercial reasons. Activists from inside and outside Poland continue to work together to protect the primeval forest. Although the Polish government states they will continue to allow logging, the combined influence of the EU and civil society makes it likely that Poland’s Belavezha Forest will continue to survive.
A government’s commercial ambitions often conflict with ideals of conservation and environmental protection. Such a conflict arose in Belarus when citizens raised their concerns about the construction of a new nuclear power plant. The construction of the plant in Belarus caused heated debates and safety concerns for Lithuania and the EU.
Belarusian citizens failed to instil much change in either the construction of the nuclear power plant or Belarusian official Belavezha Forest policies. Polish activists may have better chances of success influencing their government by having international stakeholders and the EU involved.