Epilogue

Abstract

The 1996–97 school year opened with the appointment of a new Minister for Education, Vladimir Kinelev. Formerly Chairman of the State Committee for Higher Education, he was appointed a Deputy Prime Minister in January 1996. In September 1996 he became Minister of General and Special Education, and the former Ministry of General Education and the State Committee for Higher Education were united under his leadership.2 Seven deputy ministers were appointed in September and two more later in the year. V.A. Bolotov and A.G. Asmolov remained from those serving with Tkachenko in the former Ministry of Education, and A.N. Tikhonov, V.M. Zhurakovsky, V.S. Mes’kov, and V.D. Shadrikov from the State Committee for Higher Education. Vladimir Dimitrievich Shadrikov became the first deputy minister with responsibility for secondary education. Since being first appointed a deputy minister of education in 1985 he continuously held senior posts in the ministry and the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (later the Russian Academy of Education). He had the reputation of being rather inflexible, ‘an able administrator’ but ‘a hesitant supporter of real reform’. Stephen Kerr said of the changes, ‘the forced combination of the Ministry of Education and the State Committee on Science, Higher Education and Technology Policy in the summer of 1996 was not seen by many general school teachers as a happy event.’3

Eto ne son, eto sony (This is not a dream, it’s a Sony). Part of a commercial for stereos in the Moscow Metro, October 1996.¹.