On October 5, 2021, Russians celebrate Teacher’s Day. For this occasion, specialists of the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VTSIOM) presented data from a survey conducted among the country’s residents about their attitude to their former teachers.
First of all, when hearing the word “teacher”, 25% of respondents imagine a school or university specialist, while 10% think about a good, kind person. Also, 10% noted that a teacher is associated in their minds with honour, trust, and respect, while 8% each said that a teacher is a mentor for children and that with this word they have only positive associations.
The majority of Russians (68%) said that during their school years they definitely had a teacher who influenced their views and beliefs, and whom they could call “a teacher of life”, though 29% claimed they did not have such a teacher.
In addition, 25% of Russian citizens maintain contacts with their schoolteachers in their adult life (38% among 18-24-year-olds and 35% among 35-44-year-olds), 27% maintained contacts only for the first time after school, but now they do not, and 19% have maintained contacts for a long time, but now they do not.
Finally, the study showed that this year, 53% of those who have children or grandchildren made gifts to their school teachers, including 36% gave flowers (21% in 2019), 9% gave sweets and sweets (4% in 2019), and 5% gave money (2% in 2019). At the same time, 47% did not make any gifts (61% in 2019).
As the research stated, about half of Russians (49%) assess the conditions that teachers have in their city to do their work as favourable, even though 36% hold the opposite opinion. According to Russians, the following improvements have taken place in Russian school education over the past 5 years:
- equipment has improved (37%),
- new schools have been built (20%),
- schools have been equipped (18%),
- the provision of textbooks and teaching aids has increased (15%),
- teachers’ salaries have increased (13%).