It would be superfluous: why shorten the topics in school subjects
"Unnecessary topics" may be removed from the Federal State Standard of Education for grades 4-9 in order to reduce the burden on schoolchildren and teachers, said Anzor Muzaev, head of Rosobrnadzor. However, the desire to review the Federal State Educational Standard in secondary schools is not only due to the overload of schoolchildren. Recent changes in the field of education show that one of the reasons may be the reformatting of schooling to meet the demands of the modern world, which is in dire need of technological personnel. And they plan to change the standard taking into account the improvement of the quality of mathematical and natural science education. For more information, see the Izvestia article.
How to reduce the workload in schools
At the end of last week, the head of Rosobrnadzor, Anzor Muzaev, said that the federal state standard of education for grades 4-9 would be changed, as there were "many questions" about the existing Federal State Educational Standard: there were "a lot of unnecessary topics" that caused "overstrain of teachers and children."
According to him, thanks to these changes, as well as the introduction of unified textbooks in all subjects, "additional time will be available and overload will go away."
According to unconfirmed reports, difficult topics in the school curriculum will allegedly be "cut by 15-30%."
Izvestia sent a request to Rosobrnadzor, but they did not comment on the change in the content of the Federal State Educational Standard, emphasizing that this was the prerogative of the Ministry of Education, and Anzor Muzaev "simply expressed a personal opinion." The Ministry of Education had not responded to the editorial's request at the time of publication.
At the same time, discussions about reducing and optimizing the workload have been going on for a long time. On September 1, 2025, the order of the Ministry of Education on the establishment of uniform standards for weekly academic workload came into force. According to it, schools must observe a load of no more than 21 hours in the 1st grade, 29 hours in the 5th grade, 34 hours in grades 10-11 (with a five-day week).
It was also reported that starting in 2026, foreign language classes in grades 5-7 are going to be reduced from three to two hours per week. The social studies program has already been greatly reduced, starting in 2026 it will be studied only from the 9th grade. In addition, it has been established that from September 1, 2025, no more than 10% of the study time should be allocated for control and All-Russian verification work in all subjects.
Against this background, more radical ideas are emerging, such as reducing school tuition to 10 years, which, however, have not found support in the Ministry of Education.
Most often, changes in the curriculum are explained precisely by the overload of students, which affects the quality of their training. However, another important topic that runs through all the recent reforms in education is its reformatting at the request of the state for engineering and technological personnel in the market. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly spoken about the need for end-to-end training from schools to universities and manufacturing in order to ensure technological sovereignty and leadership in high-tech industries.
The government is really very interested in this: Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, in particular, noted in April 2026 that the economy's need for technical specialists far outstrips the available human resources.
There is a transition to the technical direction of education at school and according to the changes already adopted: in particular, the introduction of a new, or rather, a well-forgotten old drawing module.
How to change the Federal State Budget
The V.S. Lesnev Institute of Educational Content and Methods, which develops educational standards in Russia, explained to Izvestia that systematic work is underway to update the Federal State Educational Standard, "aimed at improving the quality of general education and its compliance with modern challenges."
"The Federal State Educational Standard for Secondary General Education has already been updated, which will enter into force on September 1, 2027," said Olesya Sokolova, Deputy director of the Institute. — It has revised the content of mathematics and natural science subjects, primarily taking into account the priority task of improving the quality of mathematical and natural science education.
According to her, the content of these disciplines is aligned with the achievements of modern science and technology. The practical focus has also been strengthened: the number of laboratory work, workshops, and assignments focused on solving real problems has been increased.
— This will allow students to better understand the applied meaning of the laws, formulas and theorems being studied and to see how this knowledge is used to solve specific practical and industrial problems. Similar work is planned for the Federal State Educational Standard for Basic General Education," Olesya Sokolova added.
In general, we are talking about building a more logical, consistent and practically oriented program structure, the editorial interlocutor emphasized. The new Federal State Educational Standards eliminate duplication and "excessive detail", while preserving "basic, system-building knowledge."
In turn, Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Education, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor Irina Osmolovskaya explained that the Federal State Educational Standard does not include subject programs - the standards specify personal, meta—subject and subject learning outcomes. If any topics are reduced, then changes will appear in the Federal Basic Educational Programs and in the Federal Work programs for academic subjects.
In order to reduce the burden on students, we should be talking about reducing topics within subjects, and not about reducing the hours allotted for studying a particular subject, the expert said.
— At the same time, the issue of selecting the content of the educational material is difficult. We say that we are studying the fundamentals of science, but where the boundary between the "fundamentals of science" and the presentation of science itself is not clearly defined," she told Izvestia. — The presentation of educational material has its own logic, and without one topic, students may not understand another. Therefore, we can talk about both reducing topics and reducing the depth of study of the topic.
However, the content of the educational subject is now not limited only to knowledge of the "fundamentals of sciences": the Federal State Educational Standard stipulates that personal and meta-subject results are also important. Teachers often don't have enough time for this — it's important to "get through the topic," the specialist added.
—Unloading the content of academic subjects will provide an opportunity to discuss with students the meaning of the knowledge they acquire, their value, organize a discussion, solve problems for the formation of universal learning activities (analysis, synthesis, classification, research skills, etc.), and simply consolidate the educational material more fully," said Irina Osmolovskaya.
Ensuring a reasonable academic workload, according to Olesya Sokolova, is an "important task" of changing the Federal State Educational Standards.
— In recent years, the interdisciplinary approach to the content of education has been strengthening, and therefore the current work on updating standards is precisely aimed at bringing the content into a more balanced state — on the one hand, ensuring the fundamentality of education, on the other — meeting modern practical tasks and opportunities of students, — she summed up.
How the school evolves towards technical knowledge
In recent years, much has been done to improve the practical orientation of education, Irina Osmolovskaya emphasized. Textbooks are different from those that were only five to seven years ago.
— For example, physics textbooks do not expound the material dryly, but address the student, his feelings, experience, include practical, research tasks, and assignments for group work. Therefore, it is not advisable to additionally talk about strengthening the practical orientation of the content of educational subjects, this work is already underway," she said.
The expert noted that general education should not take into account only the needs of employers. Rather, he needs to be guided by the requirements for graduates, based on modern conditions: education is not obtained once and for all, it is a lifelong process. That is, it is important for students to be able to learn, deal with cognitive problems, work in a group, solve non-standard tasks, etc.
The emphasis on certain topics and their inclusion in the school curriculum is often dictated by the challenges of the times, said Anton Marko, Director of the Institute of Educational Content, Methods and Technologies at Moscow State Pedagogical University.
— Today there is really a very serious emphasis on the development of mathematical and natural science education. For example, the same physics course includes issues relevant to the modern industry: previously, there had never been a topic of wing lift, but now it has appeared in the ninth grade course. But it is clear that without increasing the total number of hours, some topics have to be sacrificed," he told Izvestia.
According to him, an imbalance in the inclusion of new topics in the school curriculum could lead to increased workload. In particular, the most popular physics textbook in recent decades, written according to the ideas of the Soviet scientist Alexander Peryshkin, did not actually change for a long time in the seventh and eighth grades, and they tried to add new topics to the 9th grade textbook - and it "bloated", creating congestion for these students.
— Therefore, it is necessary to understand that the program change is done solely to balance the course, properly distribute the workload and, yes, in response to certain challenges to modern education. At the same time, I would categorically not use the term "superfluous topics," Anton Marko emphasized.
Changing the content of curricula is a natural process that has always been and will always be in education, he is convinced. Boris Ilyukhin, a senior researcher at the Center for Economics of Continuing Education at the Presidential Academy, also spoke about this.
— FGOS is not a frozen structure, but a living organism that is constantly being updated. Indeed, the content of the standard is becoming more practice-oriented, and it is changing a little," the expert admitted.
He called the current Federal State Educational Standard quite balanced and urged not to follow the path of reducing requirements for schoolchildren, as this is "not a method of solving the problem."
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