The position of minister of education is one of the most difficult and thankless jobs in any government. Each person is faced with kindergartens, schools, universities. Any attempts to reform, update existing methods are faced with great resistance from teachers, parents, pupils, students - in general, the majority of the country's population. Andrey Fursenko, Minister of Education and Science in 2004-2012, had to drink all this cup of people's dislike and contempt. Moreover, the official himself often added fuel to the fire, shocking society with a desire to abolish the teaching of mathematics and the Russian language in high school, transferring the Academy of Sciences to the direct control of officials and showing truly diabolical zeal in the field of various reforms.
Son of an academician
The biography of Andrei Alexandrovich Fursenko in the early years is no different from biographiesordinary Leningrad intellectuals. He was born in post-war Leningrad in 1949. His father was a famous specialist in the history of America in the XVIII-XIX centuries. Alexander Fursenko was an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, worked as a secretary of the historical department and had great authority.
Due to the specifics of the work, the academician's family often had to move from place to place, and Andrei often changed schools.
However, this did not affect his performance, he instantly grasped everything on the fly, demonstrating especially good performance in the exact sciences - mathematics and physics.
Besides studying in the biography of Andrei Fursenko, a passion for filming is noted. Together with friends, they chipped in and wandered through an amateur camera, with the help of which they documented and even filmed feature films. In one of the productions, Andrei played the role of a professor, which he will become in a couple of decades.
From student to PhD
After graduating from school, Andrey Alexandrovich Fursenko in 1966 entered the leading university in the northern capital - Leningrad State University - the most complex mathematical and mechanical faculty. Shortly before this, the country experienced another education reform, as a result of which, in that particular year, the admissions committees were simultaneously besieged by crowds of tenth graders and eleventh graders.
The competition was very tough, dozens of applicants applied for one place, but the academician's son managed to overcome his first life barrier.
At the university, Andrey Alexandrovich Fursenko specialized in mechanics. In addition to studying, he was interested in public life, he was a very active member of the Komsomol and joined the ranks of the CPSU while still studying at the university. Fursenko organized voluntary squads, construction teams.
Parties, dates - all this passed by the thin St. Petersburg intellectual, his hobbies were books, he managed to get the rarest editions of authors little known in the USSR.
In 1971, he completed his studies at Leningrad State University and entered graduate school. Seven years later, he received the title of candidate of sciences. In 1990, he also defended his doctoral dissertation.
Scientist career
The career of a scientist begins in parallel with the continuation of education. Andrei Fursenko entered the Physico-Technical Institute in Leningrad in 1971 and has come a long way from a trainee researcher to a deputy director for research.
The young scientist specialized in his research on the mathematical modeling of gas-dynamic processes, plasma physics.
Working Andrei Alexandrovich wrote about a hundred scientific papers, while not leaving social activities, being an active party worker.
Fursenko's activities in the Soviet years are connected both with the rise and the sharp decline of domestic science. In particular, he was one of the creators of the legendary Buran, the first and last Soviet space shuttle. Andrey Fursenko, working in a huge team, was responsible for calculating the ship's communication speed.
Bnew realities
There is a stereotype about Soviet scientists that they are a breed of impractical, naive people who are poorly able to adapt to modern realities. One Boris Abramovich Berezovsky vividly demonstrated that one should not trust clichés. Active member of the Komsomol and party worker Andrei Fursenko also did not want to go to the bottom along with all of Soviet science.
In 1990, together with Yuri Kovalchuk and the future chief railway worker Yakunin, he went to the head of the FTI, Zhores Alferov, with a proposal to create a number of independent innovative firms at the institute that would deal with the problems of introducing scientific achievements into the real economy.
However, the patriarch of Russian science and the future Nobel laureate refused businessmen from science, not agreeing on the issue of combining research positions in future organizations and in the institute itself.
In 1991, Andrey Fursenko leaves his scientific work and goes headlong into business. He becomes one of the founders of the Rossiya bank, which will declare itself bankrupt after the August coup. For some time, the doctor of science served as vice president of the "Center for Advanced Technologies and Developments", after which he headed the "Regional Fund for Scientific and Technical Development", which he led during the nineties. These structures, according to the creators, were engaged in attracting investments in production with high technologies, as well as reorganizing defense complexes.
Joining government
In 1994Andrey Fursenko made a significant acquaintance with the future head of state Putin, who at that time was in charge of foreign economic relations of the northern capital. An official of the city administration supported the scientist-businessman in the transfer of buildings of defense complexes to the Fursenko funds.
Having headed the country, Vladimir Vladimirovich will then remember the educated entrepreneur and invite him to work in the government. In December 2001 Andrey Fursenko became Deputy Minister of Industry, Science and Technology. Already in 2003, he became a full-fledged master in the ministerial office. A year later, a new ministry was created, which combined education and science in its jurisdiction. Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov instructed the same Andrei Fursenko to lead this titanic work, who will hold his new position until 2012.
Unified State Examination Conductor
Energetic and active, the doctor of sciences decided to radically take up reforms in domestic science and education. Fursenko's first high-profile step was the introduction of the Unified State Examination, although the very idea belonged to his predecessor as Minister of Education. Initially, he was negative about the idea of a unified state exam conducted in a test form, but then he radically changed his mind.
According to Fursenko, the introduction of the USE would significantly reduce corruption in the admission of applicants to universities and eliminate the human factor in entrance exams. In response, the rectors of many of the country's largest institutions and universities stood up. In particular, he sharply criticized the USEhead of Moscow State University Sadovnichy.
The Ministry made some concessions on this issue and allowed individual educational institutions to select students on the basis of specialized Olympiads.
OPK and life safety for schoolchildren
Another high-profile step of the minister was the introduction of religious subjects into the school curriculum. Here Fursenko managed to incur the wrath of both representatives of the church and the secular intelligentsia. He spoke in favor of studying the history of the main world religions in schools and strongly objected to the fact that the methodology of the subject "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" was given to the regions without coordination with the center.
The hated and despised politician went on a rampage and finally shocked society with his new high school education program. According to the minister, only life safety and physical education should remain mandatory for students, while mathematics and the Russian language became additional subjects. People sensed that Fursenko was slowly planning the transition of education to paid rails and almost pulled the imprudent minister on a pitchfork. The President of the country of those years, Dmitry Medvedev, had to do his best to disown the hated Fursenko, and the new program was quickly wrapped up.
Higher education and science
Higher education also did not go unnoticed by Fursenko. He became an active conductor of the Bologna system and initiated the transition to a two-level system of highereducation - undergraduate and graduate.
One of Fursenko's loudest steps was his attack on the Academy of Sciences. This branch of public activity really needed the attention of the state, because due to the outflow of young scientists to the West in the nineties, most academicians have long crossed the line of seventy years, and they could hardly become sources of daring innovative projects.
However, the Minister of Science and Education decided that, first of all, he should focus on the administrative and economic activities of scientific institutions and developed a reform plan, according to which the RAS, along with everything, was completely transferred under direct government control.
This loss of traditional independence could not please the academicians, and they declared a real war on the reformer. The case ended with the fact that after a long struggle, after the departure of the former scientist from the post of minister, the parties agreed on a compromise.
In 2012, one of the most unpopular ministers of modern Russia resigned. Today Andrey Alexandrovich Fursenko is Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation for Education and Science.
