MPs want to ban their own children from studying abroad

On November 14, a State Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation submitted to parliament a bill proposing to prohibit the children of officials from studying abroad. According to the proposed bill, civil servants, including at the municipal level, as well as employees of state corporations, will lose the right to send their children to foreign educational institutions."This prevents the formation of a truly national administrative elite in the country, washes out personnel, contributes to the consolidation of social inequality in Russia, the separation of the ruling class from the people," the authors point out in the explanatory note.

However, before being surprised by an unusual proposal, it is necessary to make a few reservations. Firstly, the bill concerns only children under the age of 18: this is not surprising, since it would be strange to restrict the rights of completely independent and adult citizens on the basis of the occupation of their parents so significantly. This means that the children of officials will still be able to study at foreign universities, although they will lose the opportunity to receive secondary education abroad: since it is higher education in the USA and England that usually attracts the attention of wealthy parents, it cannot be said that the situation will change dramatically.

Secondly, it must be remembered that so far this is only a draft law, and not a law that has come into force: it must go through the voting procedure in parliament. Many bills proposed by MPs do not go through this stage - especially when it comes to scandalous proposals, the purpose of which is to raise the popularity of the MP or the party as a whole. "Successful" bills are usually put forward by "United Russia", because to get the majority of votes without the support of this party. The same bill, as we have already indicated, was put forward by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which does not at all guarantee a positive outcome of the vote. So, in 2013, the communists have already come forward with a similar proposal, but the amendment was rejected by parliament.

Moreover, officials do quite often send their children to study abroad - primarily to universities, but sometimes to schools. It is very likely that they will not want to part.with this pleasant habit. For example, the daughter of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Yekaterina, studied in New York, where she graduated from Columbia University. The daughter of the press secretary of the President Dmitry Peskov did not want to stay in Russia either - now she lives and studies in Paris.The son of the former Children's Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov studied in USA and England, although he has now returned to work in Russia. It is unlikely that these people, as well as hundreds of other high-ranking officials and politicians, would agree to voluntarily lose the opportunity to send their children to the best educational institutions in the world, which today, unfortunately, are not in Russia.