Miory Regional Executive Committee

At the "Open Microphone with the President" event with university students from the Vitebsk region, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko explained why he is so demanding regarding textbooks, as reported by a BELTA correspondent.

Before the question-and-answer session, Alexander Lukashenko spoke about the current situation in the education sector. The head of state emphasized that all systemic reforms are now complete. Many innovations have been tried in recent years, as it was necessary to rebuild the work in this sphere after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"There have been many instances in my life when I had to rework textbooks. Not by myself, but by compelling educated people: 'Make a proper textbook.' A textbook, for me, is an icon. A textbook is the foundation of learning. It should contain a concentration of all knowledge on the subject. And we reworked these textbooks many, many times. I cannot say that I am satisfied; I am already critical of myself: perhaps I am excessively demanding of those who write and create these textbooks. Perhaps it really should be like that... It seems to me that in the times when I was studying, textbooks were simpler and more accessible," said Alexander Lukashenko.

"If a textbook is complex and one has to read a particular paragraph twice, it 'kills' the learner, alienates the student from the subject. Therefore, complex knowledge must be conveyed in simple language – to schoolchildren, to students. And this is the hardest part. Only unique individuals can do this. I approach the formation and creation of our textbooks and educational materials from these positions," said Alexander Lukashenko.

At the university, the head of state was presented with a new textbook on modern political economy. In this regard, he spoke about how educational programs in economics were previously formed in Belarus: the Western approach was taken as a basis, and this knowledge was simply "fed" into the country. "If we had followed this path in Belarus (and many countries that lack such enormous resource potential have followed this path), we would have perished," the President stated. "Then I sent the former Minister of Economy to be a rector with one task: it is necessary to stop this collapse in education, we need to teach our people what we need, and this will be correct."

Source: belta.by