Young teachers are waited for in Chernobyl districts

A Minsk Linguistic University graduate Maryna Fedaruk who danced with the President at the graduation ball and did not go to work in a village after that went to study for a Master’s degree instead. Her scholarship is more than the salary of a young specialist. ERB decided to find out whether anyone was waiting for graduates who did not come to work a year ago and it turned out that nobody actually needed them. Ullyana Kavaleva, a Mazyr Pedagogical University graduate, had to go to the village of Slabada. But she didn’t. ERB phoned the school administration to find out what the young specialist refused from and whether there was a vacant place this year. The head of the teaching department says that only one graduate half-timer came to work in their school in September. The young specialist’s first salary was 200 thousand BRB.


ERB: Young people must be very reluctant to go to your village, right?
Завуч: Why do you think so? Mazyr in not that far from here, it is about 17 or 18 kilometers away. They want to work here but not in father than that. We have an agricultural town built here, a hospital and a kindergarten.

However, the school still needs a psychologist half-timer because Natallya Karbun (young specialist) has become an organizer. She lives in Mazyr with her husband and has to spend her own money to travel to the village school every day. She spends about 60 thousand roubles per month on it and her salary is 230 thousands.


Natallya Karabun: I am from Mazyr so I travel there every day. I was not sent there, I paid for my studies so I had to look for a job myself.
ERB: Did they offer you accommodation in Slabada?
Natallya Karabun: No.

A Minsk Linguistic University graduate Maryna Fedaruk who danced with the President at the graduation ball in the Palace of the Republic did not arrive to her assignment place either. Ivanava Education Department, Brest Region, informed that they would be able to find a job for a teacher of English, French and Italian. The girl would be teaching French in the local school.


Ivanava Education Department: She did not evade assignment; she simply went to study for her Master’s Degree. It is a serious reason.


If Maryna had arrived at the district her salary would have been 270 thousand BRB. That’s the normal salary of a young specialist in the region. By the way, Maryna gets 473 thousand rubles of master scholarship. The Education Department informed ERB that they have sent an appeal for a young specialist again this year.

Another graduate of same university Yauheniya Shashnyova was not that lucky. The girl did not arrive at Drahichyn Education Department and is still paying 18 millions to the state. ERB asked the chief specialist Alena Paulyukovich where they could send the girl – to the district centre or to a village.


Alena Paulyukovіch: You know that all graduates are sent to villages now. So she would not have been an exception.


The Education Department has already sent five appeals for young specialists this year. Drahichyn District lacks teachers of chemistry, physics and computer science. All of them will have to go to villages and work for 270 thousands per month because there are no vacant places in town.


46 appeals have been sent from Vetka, Homel Region. It is 12 more than last year. 70% of the appeals are for villages. The specialist of the Education Department says that only 2 graduates did not arrive at this Chernobyl district last year and the reason was they were mustered. Everyone can receive accommodation there – teachers’ houses have been built for this.


23 teachers are being waited for in Naroulya. However, the specialist noted that half of last year’s graduates were born in Mazyr and the other were from Homel Region. The salary in Chernobyl districts is the same as throughout the country.


Naroulya Education Department: a monthly salary of a young specialist as of January 1, 2008 is 210 thousand 728 rubles. Additional money, bonuses and moneyed assistance of 5% is added to it. Village teachers also get a 20% bonus.


The only plus about Chernobyl districts is that teachers get accommodation. Special houses for teachers are built there. 3 or 4 people can live in one house. If there is a family of young specialists they immediately get a house of their own.


However, nobody wants to get the place of a singer Hanna Sharkunova. Pinsk Education department informed ERB that nobody had been waiting for the singer there. There are plenty of teachers of music in the district and in villages.