The use of schools for state propaganda is not new. Authoritarian regimes have employed similar measures in different eras: “political education” (politvospitaniye) in the USSR or the introduction of “Xi Jinping Thought” in China. Yet the momentum of the current ideological campaign in today’s Russia is striking. Below, we will see how the Russian school system is changing under the influence of the war and what consequences this has had and will have. 

Centralization of control and uniform nationwide courses

Since 2022, the federal authorities have been tightening their grip on education, both in terms of organization and in terms of content. The previous balance between different levels of educational administration has been dismantled. Though de jure the Ministry of Education does not directly run regional and municipal schools, de facto a single, vertical chain of command has emerged. Regional officials transmit central instructions to municipalities, which in turn pass them on to directors of schools.

The law allows the entity that established the school (usually the municipality) to dismiss the director at any time without explanation, creating many opportunities for pressure. In 2024, for example, in Irkutsk Region the director of a rural school was dismissed right after elections in which a government-backed candidate performed poorly at the polling station located in that school.

The rejection of school autonomy in determining educational content is now codified in law. In September 2022, Federal Law No. 371-FZ introduced uniform Federal General Education Basic Programs (Federal'nyye osnovnyye obshcheobrazovatel'nyye programmy, or FOOPs) across the country. This eliminated the principle of regional and local variability: the state gained full control over what children are taught. The new FOOPs regulate the curriculum in detail, down to lists of specific topics, facts and works for each term, depriving schools of any flexibility. Teachers are required to follow the curriculum strictly, especially in the humanities (e.g., history, literature and social studies). 

A rewriting of content is also taking place. The health and safety course has been renamed “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Homeland” and now includes study of the basics of military service. The high school history curriculum has been supplemented with events from 2014 to 2022: textbooks justify Russia’s actions (“reunification with Crimea,” “special military operation” and subsequent sanctions) and encourage students to “resist the falsification of history.” By 2023, the state had created all the conditions for full control over educational content, and the school curriculum is becoming increasingly ideological.

Citizen-building instead of education: The new ideology of schools

Beyond the curriculum, the authorities have institutionalized ideological influence through what is formally called “citizen-building work” (vospitatel'naya rabota). The very concept of “citizen-building” has become part of the law. In December 2023, amendments were made to the federal education law. First, “citizen-building” was defined as activities aimed at fostering patriotism and respect for the defenders of the Fatherland and traditional values. Second, the Federal Program for Citizen-Building (Federal'naya rabochaya programma vospitaniya) and the Federal Calendar for Citizen-Building Work (Federal'nyy kalendarnyy plan vospitatel'noy raboty) were introduced have been mandatory for schools since last year. 

Since autumn 2022, all schools have held a weekly lesson called Conversations about Important Things, widely discussed on Russian social media and in the press. Every Monday, teachers devote class time to go through centralized scripts on “key values”: patriotism, family traditions, respect for the military, national holidays and current events. The Ministry of Education distributes teaching materials, presentations and videos and then requires reports on implementation. Essentially, these classes function as a tool of ideological education and a channel for communicating the official state position to schoolchildren.

Conversations about Important Things are technically extracurricular and thus not included in the federal curriculum, but in reality they are mandatory. No one has officially challenged the course, but there have been attempts to punish parents who forbid their children from attending.

The list of “educational” activities is also expanding. The new “educational calendar” for schoolchildren, introduced in the 2023 amendments, contains 42 dates and events organized by theme and by the institution responsible (for example, the nationwide patriotic campaign Let Us Bow to Those Great Years or the campaign dedicated to Heroes of the Fatherland Day). This system establishes comprehensive ideological control over educational activities in schools. In other words, the ideological component of education is not only strengthened but also streamlined by the state.

Teachers under pressure

The transformation of schools into a propaganda tool has directly affected teachers. The teacher community is divided: some welcome a greater focus on “citizen-building,” while others are uncomfortable with it. Teachers say there are too many imposed activities, which is interfering with the learning process: “there is so much of it that we physically do not have time to teach our regular lessons,” one teacher said of these extracurricular activities. The changes in recent years have increased workloads, and the pressure on both teachers and students is so intense that core learning suffers. Many are forced to reschedule regular classes, shorten programs or sacrifice quality to accommodate all the bureaucratically mandated “patriotic” time.

Faced with this, teachers often resort to quiet sabotage. They “go through the motions” when given new directives: events are put on for show, to check a box, without genuine effort. School administrations sometimes water down requirements behind the scenes, trying not to overload staff with unnecessary “activities.” Still, you cannot ignore directives entirely: the atmosphere of control and intimidation leaves no other choice. Teachers are dismissed and even prosecuted for open dissent. In Moscow, a teacher who called Russia’s actions in Ukraine “aggression” was forced to flee the country to avoid prison. In Penza, a history teacher was fired and fined after a student denounced her. In many schools, dissent is punished, and denunciations encouraged.

Teachers are also pressed into work unrelated to education. In Moscow schools, they were forced to get voters out to their polling stations under threat of losing their bonuses. In Russia’s Far East, they were made to deliver draft notices during mobilization. Technically, participation in extracurricular activities is voluntary, but refusing is virtually impossible. As a result, teachers have been assigned the additional function of “ideological citizen-builders.” This is compulsory, and the workload is sometimes not compensated at all.

It is therefore unsurprising that the psychological atmosphere in schools is deteriorating rapidly. Instead of trust and cooperation, mistrust, self-censorship and perfunctory adherence to directives are spreading. Teachers, even when they disagree, are compelled to demonstrate loyalty to keep their jobs.

The situation is exacerbated by staff shortages. The number of teachers has declined, while the number of students is increasing. Between 2021 and 2024, the number of teachers fell approximately 1.8%, while that of students grew 3.5% from 17.2 million to 17.8 million. The main reason is the “demographic wave” of the mid-2010s. In 2024, 1.8 million children entered first grade, among the highest figures in the last two decades. As a result, many schools are overcrowded: 16% of children attend the afternoon shift, and in some regions the figure is as high as 20%. A decline is expected by 2030, when the school-age population will shrink due to falling birth rates.

Russian schools are now at 16.9 students per teacher, and the ratio continues to rise. The shortage of mathematics teachers, foreign language teachers and psychologists is particularly acute. In rural schools, shortages are more severe than in cities and are dealt with by having teachers work overtime. This leads to burnout and declining quality of teaching.

The burden on parents

The ideological reformatting of schools has had a direct impact on families. Students are overloaded with additional lessons and activities. Curricula have been expanded, and after school many children are made to participate in “patriotic” clubs, projects and events. Such activities are supposed to foster civic responsibility and unity. In reality: they take time away from regular classes and leisure, leaving students tired and irritable.

Parents are also under pressure. The financial burden has increased. Despite the guarantee of free education, families are increasingly required to pay for school renovations, uniforms, workbooks, extracurricular excursions and other needs. The situation is particularly bad in poorer regions, where the parents are in effect subsidizing basic school necessities, as the schools lack sufficient funds. Against the backdrop of broadly rising prices, “free” education has become increasingly costly.

Around 80% of students receive textbooks, but families must purchase workbooks, maps and supplementary materials to prepare for exams. More than two thirds of parents do this regularly. The monopoly position of the publishing house Prosveshcheniye, a quarter of which is owned by companies affiliated with Putin associate Arkady Rotenberg, exacerbates the situation: prices are rising, and textbooks are often in short supply. In 2025, the Federal Antimonopoly Service fined Prosveshcheniye RUB 2 billion for price manipulation, yet the problems persist. 
In addition to textbooks, parents spend money on clubs, about a third of which cost money, and on private tutoring: approximately 60% of high school students see tutors. Even getting ready for September 1 (the first day of the school year in Russia) costs most families more than RUB 10,000.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere within the school community is generally getting worse, with conflicts and mistrust between students, parents and teachers intensifying. There are already cases of denunciations: students and their parents report teachers for “unpatriotic” statements, while some teachers turn in students suspected of oppositional sympathies. In Tula Region, for example, the father of a sixth-grade girl who had drawn an antiwar picture was sentenced to prison, and she was removed from her family and placed in a social center.

Balancing the carrot and the stick to maintain the system

Aware of the risks of going too far, the authorities are combining harsh pressure with measures to ease tensions. On the one hand, the policy of centralization and total control continues: new regulations are constantly handed down, the paperwork for teachers increases, the choice of state-approved textbooks narrows, while teachers’ salaries barely grow. Schools are assigned new responsibilities without additional resources, fueling burnout and turnover.

On the other hand, the state is offering limited incentives. The year 2023 was declared the “Year of the Teacher,” with efforts to enhance the prestige of the profession, including celebrations, awards and rhetoric about combating burnout, made at the federal level. While largely symbolic, teachers still appreciated this attention as recognition of their role.

Through a combination of carrots and sticks, the authorities have so far avoided open sabotage in schools. But this equilibrium is fragile. According to the report, the current model of “militarized education” is likely to become further entrenched. The ideological and “citizen-building” components will continue to expand, further permeating the learning process. Online control and increased informal administrative pressure can also be expected. To make sure the education system keeps functioning, the authorities are expanding support measures for teachers.

Overall, schools have become more focused on instilling in teenagers the state-imposed ideals of civic responsibility and “traditional values.” How deeply the new doctrine will take root in the younger generation remains an open question. What is already clear is that the changes in recent years have reduced teachers’ freedom, increased the “citizen-building” burden on teachers, strengthened the ideological and militaristic component of schooling, and raised the workload for students.