Rector Ilshat Gafurov presented his opening speech at the VI International Schoolteachers Festival at the Yelabuga Institute of KFU on August 10th.

Among other things Dr. Gafurov said, “This is already the 6th rendition of the festival which means that it has become interesting. All regions of Russia are presented here. It also has a special significance to KFU because we graduate teachers for the whole Republic of Tatarstan”.

There are currently two models of pedagogical education employed at KFU. The first one is a classic subject teaching model. It must be mentioned that the interest towards teaching among young applicants is on an upward trend. Young people are ready to work at schools.

There was a reason for the International Festival to be established in the first place. Traditional August meetings of the professional educators started to seem a bit insufficient in terms of networking. The informal part of the gatherings needed a boost.

Minister of Education and Science of Tatarstan Engel Fattakhov was among the visitors. During his personal training class he said, “I could have gone to Brazil today but preferred to visit this event. There is much to be discussed. This forum started simultaneously with the traditional August meetings in the past, but now Yelabuga starts first. We adopted a republican development roadmap until 2030, and human capital is the first chapter in the strategy guidebook. Teachers are our main treasure. We have to guarantee high-quality education even in remote villages”.

A total of about 500 people registered for the event. Many are recurrent visitors, as is the case with Ruzilya Sabirova, a teacher of English from Arsk. She makes use of the knowledge acquired at the festivals: “Here you can see what people do to raise their level of education. A teacher has to create an environment that helps children discover their talents. You cannot force anyone to study but you can involve them through interest”.

Dozens of seminars, training sessions, lectures will take place here from August 9th to August 12th.

First graders were also welcomed at the event during the special school preparation session. They received their first schoolbags from Rector Ilshat Gafurov. One of the girls made a pretty ingenious move of asking the Rector to leave an autograph in her school diary. That’s a good one because teachers will now think twice before leaving non-complimentary notes there.