Meeting with deputy prime ministers.
Exсerpts from the transcript:
Meeting with deputy prime ministers
Dmitry Medvedev: Recently we have made several decisions, including the endorsement of the updated version of the federal targeted programme on the Russian language for 2016-2020. We plan to earmark 7.5 billion roubles for this programme. It is aimed at increasing the number of Russian-language translators and teachers who are versed in new methods of teaching Russian as a foreign language. The number of our schools abroad should increase and we should give them targeted support. We should also upgrade online resources – the global network is a promising venue for teaching Russian. The PushkinOnline website has already been launched.
Olga Golodets: In a year the website drew the attention of 300,000 people, of whom 90,000 continuously learned Russian on it. We think this is a good achievement for a project that is less than a year old. With the opening of this website, 228 organisations from over 20 countries have become partners of the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute and have chosen it as an online venue for exchanging ideas on developing and promoting Russian. Today the website supports education in Russian in cooperation with eight foreign languages. About 3,500 teachers have already completed professional training courses on this website. Some 6,700 children from 67 countries underwent education in Russian online.
We are not only supporting online education with the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute. Our major universities have also introduced special online education programmes in Russia and beyond. St Petersburg State University, Moscow State University and the Far Eastern Federal University are in the lead in this respect.
A special platform — TV Lectorium – has been launched. It has about 50,000 users and is rapidly gaining momentum. Under the programme, we plan to have one million users of Russian-language courses next year, increase their number to three million in one year, and reach our rated capacity of 10 million by 2020.
Dmitry Medvedev: This is a good plan. It will benefit our country and those who study Russian. We must do everything to develop such programmes because they are very convenient. Distance education is a very promising area because it does not require travel and other expenses. So, we should invest in this area.
