Schools in the Vitebsk region will admit 108,000 students in the new academic year

August 31, Vitebsk / Olga Bogacheva - BELTA /. 108,000 students will attend schools in the Vitebsk region in the new academic year, as reported to BELTA correspondent by Ivan Shchurok, head of the education department of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee. More than 10,000 children will take their seats in the first grades. "We expect that for the first time in recent years, their number will exceed last year's level," noted Ivan Shchurok, adding that these exact figures will be known after September 5. Festive assemblies dedicated to Knowledge Day will be held in schools of the Vitebsk region on September 1, and the first solemn lesson of the new academic year will be dedicated to the theme "I am a Citizen of Belarus." schoolchildren and students of Vitebsk were able to conduct a kind of preparation for it in the last days of August: this week, the Vitebsk Regional Museum of Local Lore, as part of the republican patriotic campaign with the same name, invited schoolchildren and students to visit the museum's exhibition "Vitebsk Region during the Great Patriotic War" free of charge, which was used by many children. And in Glubokoye, the theme of the lesson common to all schoolchildren of Belarus will also be related to the Year of Books, as the Day of Belarusian Written Language is celebrated here on September 1-2. The teaching staff of schools in the Vitebsk region will be replenished with more than 580 young teachers in the new academic year. They have already been enrolled and assigned to workplaces in both urban and rural schools. In total, about 14.5 thousand teachers will teach in the region in the 2012/2013 academic year. 92% of them have higher education, 78% have the highest and 1st qualification category, 911 young teachers with secondary vocational education are obtaining higher education through distance learning. To a small extent (0.25 - 0.75 positions), teachers of retirement age teaching foreign languages and mathematics are also involved in the educational process. Their potential is used in rural schools where there is a shortage of staff. 195 school buses will transport students to schools, 21 of which were purchased this year. The necessary textbooks for lessons have been received. All 534 schools, which will open their doors hospitably on September 1, are ready for the upcoming classes and are waiting for their students. -0-