Development of Regional School Museum Space

The results of a study of regional school museum space of Perm krai, which was created in 2013 on a sample consisting of 215 schools, were published in the paper for the first time. It was found that at least 12% of schools have museums. School museums began working in the mid-1960s., peaks of their activity (1985-89; 1995-99) were connected with published government regulations, ordinances, and decrees. The main types of school museums are historic – 30.3%, and museum of history of the school – 24.4%. Most of school museums are located in the rooms of 30-40 sqm, and have a collection up to 200 items, including things and photos. The size of children's museum association is 12-16 people on the average. Most of school museums (72%) are satisfied with the quality of their work, but almost one in four put itself low scores. Museums see the reason for the poor results in the lack of necessary competencies at the head of the museum and poor quality of exposition. However, correlation analysis found that self-esteem of school museum does not depend on the quality of exhibition but on the involvement of members of children's museum association in the research work. Among schools that have no museum, 31% don’t want to open it. Others report the presence of necessary rooms (17%), man who is ready to organize of the museum (66%), available exhibits (69%). 77% of the schools wishing to open a museum that needs consultancy support. The author believes that development of school museum space is possible as a part of the State regional Program in which school museums are integrators of children's researches. It seems appropriate to unite all existing school collections (class of biology, geography, history, etc.) into a single museum fund. School museums should be public; find ways to interact with government, state and private museums; expand its presence on the Internet. The regional governments are recommended to consider providing grant support for school museums.