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- Hunger Games: schoolchildren are required to be fed for free on the Unified State Exam and OGE
Hunger Games: schoolchildren are required to be fed for free on the Unified State Exam and OGE
The deputies of the State Duma sent a proposal to the Minister of Education Sergey Kravtsov (available in Izvestia) to oblige the exam sites of the Unified State Exam and the OGE to provide free full-fledged hot meals to schoolchildren and teachers-organizers. The authors of the idea are confident: This will help keep children healthy and reduce stress. But how realistic is it to implement the project across the country, and is a free bowl of soup really capable of influencing exam success? Izvestia has studied the issue.
Children's health is at stake
One of the authors of the initiative, the head of the Fair Russia — Patriots — For Truth faction in the State Duma, Sergei Mironov, in a conversation with Izvestia, expressed his conviction that proper nutrition during the OGE and USE can have a positive impact on the health of students — it is for this purpose that the proposal was submitted to the government.
— Any exam is always stressful. And given the way the Unified State Exam is organized, this is a double stress and a blow to health," says the MP. — And when graduates find themselves under this hours-long stress with a bottle of water and a chocolate bar, the problems get even worse. With our initiative, we want to reduce and mitigate this damage to children's health. We propose to provide free meals for exams at the expense of federal funds, those that are already allocated in the form of subsidies to the regions for the preparation and conduct of state final examinations.
Head of the Information Support Department of the Federal Service for Supervision of Education and Science (Rosobrnadzor) Alexander Striga said in an interview with Izvestia that this initiative requires detailed discussion with the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation and the executive bodies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation in the field of education.
— For the organization of hot meals, it will be necessary to review the current rules of the exam. In addition, this measure will lead to increased costs on the part of the subjects of the Russian Federation, as well as increase the time spent by participants at the examination sites, Rosobrnadzor believes.
Izvestia sent requests to clarify the positions to the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, the Federal Nutrition Monitoring Center for Students (under the Ministry of Education) and the Federal Institute for Pedagogical Measurements.
Why does hunger make it difficult to concentrate
Natalia Fedkaeva, a child psychologist at the Discovery network of bilingual kindergartens and schools, notes: During exams, the child's body is faced with increased stress, both mentally and emotionally.
"Stress, excitement, and the need to stay focused for a long time all require energy," she says. — In conditions of nutritional deficiency, it becomes more difficult for a student to concentrate, anxiety increases, and performance decreases. A balanced and varied diet before the exam or during breaks can compensate for this deficiency.
Natalia Denisova, a senior researcher at the Federal Research Center for Nutrition, Biotechnology and Food Safety, a nutritionist, adds that the organization of full-fledged hot meals for schoolchildren during the OGE and USE is very important for observing the principles of optimal nutrition. After all, a long break between meals can worsen the stress of the exam and cause a decrease in performance, which will necessarily affect the results.
Therefore, the expert notes, during exams there are often such manifestations as fainting and other vegetative disorders in schoolchildren. According to her, it would be advisable to organize a full-fledged snack for schoolchildren during the exam as part of the nutrition during the OGE and USE, since many cannot eat hot food due to stress, but they could snack on fruits, yogurt, etc., and today they can only bring water to the exam. and chocolate, which is not a complete snack.
The Federation Council supports the initiative of the lower house. Senator Olga Epifanova notes that most graduates, due to anxiety, may not eat enough or not at all on the eve of the exam and on the day of its completion, come on an empty stomach. Besides, many people can't really sleep from excitement. Hunger causes nervous exhaustion faster. The result is often weakness and dizziness.
— Unfortunately, we do not have statistics on how many times an ambulance was called during the Unified State Exam for graduates in need of urgent medical care, although it is necessary, — says a representative of the upper house of the Federal Assembly. — However, according to separate data for different years, if we talk about Moscow, this is about 200 calls, in other cities — from 10 to 40.
Anna Shatravkina, Dean of the Faculty of Pedagogy at Synergy University, draws attention to the fact that free meals must take into account medical restrictions (allergies, diabetes). and it was light enough not to cause discomfort during exams.
How much does it cost and who will pay for the food
At the request of Izvestia, the Association of Social Nutrition Enterprises (ASP) calculated what the real cost of meals in schools should be. The price of only a set of food products for breakfast should be 108 rubles, lunch — 150 rubles, and taking into account the cost of catering, breakfast should cost 177 rubles, and lunch — 246 rubles, respectively. Depending on the time of the exams, it is necessary to determine which meals will be provided.
In total, according to the calculations of the association's specialists, additional costs from budgets of all levels for providing breakfast at exam sites will amount to 921 million rubles (561.6 million from the federal budget and 359.4 million from the regional and local budgets), lunch — 1.28 billion rubles (780 million from federal and 500 million from regional and local funds).
The organization is convinced that the nutrition mechanisms for exams can be the same as for younger students. The infrastructure for this is already in place even in remote and low-grade schools, especially since elementary school students are no longer studying during exams. And control over the quality and safety of food at the examination sites can be carried out by representatives of Rospotrebnadzor, heads of educational organizations, parents, etc.
"We believe that organizing teachers should also be provided with meals during the USE and OGE at the expense of budgets of various levels, by analogy with schoolchildren," the TSA insists. — The amount allocated for teachers' meals during exams and checks of results will amount to about 320 million rubles from budgets of all levels.
Larisa Tarasova, Chairman of the Kirov Regional Consumer Union, considers the proposal reasonable, but with important reservations. In her opinion, the financing of the initiative should involve the participation of the federal, regional and municipal budgets, so that the burden does not fall solely on local organizations.
In turn, Valery Pavlov, Chairman of the Council of the Chuvash Consumer Union, suggests considering the idea of a single nutrition standard for senior schoolchildren, a special standard for the examination period.
Measures and obstacles
Alexander Yefimov, Director of the regional Center for Educational Quality Assessment, draws attention to the fact that currently drinking water is provided at all examination sites for students who are undergoing state final certification. Nutrition is a bit more complicated.
— On the one hand, the SanPiN does not contain requirements for catering at events lasting less than four hours, on the other hand, the duration of the exams themselves varies. There is no point in catering where only 1-2 graduates take, for example, the oral part of the Chinese language, since the duration of this exam is only 14 minutes," he said.
"But on the other hand," the expert continues, "there are long exams that come close to four hours: core mathematics, physics, literature, biology, computer science last 235 minutes. The guys also spend a certain amount of time in the classroom. Therefore, the subject of discussion is not meaningless," emphasizes Alexander Efimov.
Zoya Proshkova, a senior researcher at the Sociological Institute of the Federal Research Sociological Center, believes that, most likely, the real obstacles to the implementation of this idea will be financing and organization. The problems, however, can be overcome, but since the costs are planned to be shifted to local budgets, the question of equality of examination conditions for schoolchildren will arise.
At the same time, Alexander Ojo, a lecturer at the Znanie Society and a history teacher at GBOU School No. 854 in Moscow, criticizes the initiative.: "The exam venue is already very responsible, the staff are working tirelessly, and another task is unlikely to improve the quality of the exam."
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