Interfax: Unified history textbook concept endorsed, forwarded to president

File Photo of U.S. Diplomat Teaching Class to Russian Students

MOSCOW. Oct 30 (Interfax) – A concept of a unified history textbook was endorsed at an expanded meeting of the Russian History Society and forwarded to the president for consideration on Wednesday.

“Completing the work on the concept and forwarding it to the president in line with his instructions, we are completing only the first stage of the work, and the arrangement of a tender for writing the textbook is ahead,” State Duma Speaker and Russian History Society Chairman Sergei Naryshkin said at a meeting at the Russian Academy of Sciences presidium.

This tender should be “open and transparent” and could be arranged on the basis of the Russian History Society, as the development of the textbook’s concept “has shown that the way that’s been chosen is correct,” he said.

A unified standard of teaching history in school has been developing under presidential instructions since spring 2013 by an ad hoc task force led by Naryshkin, Education Minister Dmitry Livanov, and Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky.

A public discussion of the textbook’s concept was started on July 1. Hundreds of proposals have been made since then, and a lot of them have been taken into consideration.

New history textbooks for students of Russian schools are to be written based on this concept, which encompasses the period from Ancient Rus to 2012.

[featured image is file photo of Russian high school class visited by foreign dignitary, not directly related to article subject matter]

Comment