Business Failed

It doesn’t seem possible anyone could make profit on “schedule for Kolya”.

The society was worried when an announcement of one of the schools was published on the vk.com community “Typical Barysau” last week: parents were notified that paid morning childcare groups would start working. Parents will have to pay Bn 2,36 for an extra hour and a half of their children’s staying at school (7-8.30 a.m.), and Bn 1,88 for one extra hour (7.30-8.30 a.m.).

The social network users joked that this was quite a smart way of earning money on the later start of school lessons and expressed their worries that other schools of the country would follow the example of the adventurous Barysau teachers, Belgazeta writes.

The officials of the Department of Education, Sports and Tourism tried to pacify the society, like, “these paid services are not some innovation, they have existed for several years”, and the tariffs are “ratified by the Department of Education”.

The information reached the Ministry of Education, which finally made everything clear. “No money should be taken for childcare services,” — said Spokesperson for the Ministry Liudmila Vysotskaya. — Fees can be taken only if nutrition is organized. You see, we said it wasn’t a problem to take children to school earlier so that someone would watch over them, when the lessons start at 9 a.m. However, we didn’t mean that morning childcare groups would be organized and the parents would be obliged to pay for them. It’s just some overreach at school.”

The Barysau educators admitted the mistake quickly. As independent journalists have been told in the same Department of Education, this was a blunder of the principal who simply wanted to offer "paid educational services", but did it in the wrong form. In general, the situation was more or less resolved, but the question remained open: have the "wise" ideas of Lukashenka, starting with Decree #3 and ending with shuffling school schedules, brought too much unrest to Belarusians in the recent years?