How Young Teachers Move from Big Cities to Countryside: A Case from the Program "Uchitel' Dlya Rossii" (Teacher for Russia)

The school teacher plays a significant role in the formation of the student's personality and socialization. The methods and means used by the teacher, as well as the nature of interaction with the child, can seriously affect his future life. In this regard, many people often talk about the special appointment of a school teacher, which is why public and legal requirements for representatives of this profession are growing. The issue of the quality of teacher training in higher education institutions is becoming increasingly important. At the same time, new opportunities and projects are emerging that provide an alternative entry into the school teacher profession and address the challenges faced by young teachers. One of these projects is "Teacher for Russia", the case of which will be analyzed in this paper. According to statistics, almost half of Russian young teachers leave school in the first two years of work (Ilyina, Loginova, 2019). Some believe that this is a normal process of screening out those who would not be able to work as a teacher in a school (Kasprzak, 2013). Nevertheless, most researchers write about the personnel problem in schools, especially since due to the large outflow of young teachers, there is a risk of staff obsolescence, which can lead to the conservation of many schools (Bulanova, 2016). The international study TALIS-2018 also recorded a slowdown in attracting young personnel to Russian schools. The situation is complicated not only by the fact that the teaching staff is not being updated, but also by the shortage of teachers in general. Experts of the All-Russian Popular Front conducted a survey and found that about half of teachers report a shortage of staff in schools. In 2019, the share of such teachers has only increased. As a result, the school system reproduces itself, and the potential for positive change and innovation is reduced due to the inability to diversify existing theories and practices in teaching. Therefore, the issue of improving the personnel situation in the school system by attracting young professionals and retaining them in the profession requires scientific reflection and new practical ideas. Thus, the very stage of entering the profession of a school teacher becomes an important subject in the overall development of school education. Initial professional and methodological support, the development of personal qualities and adequate ideas about the future profession are necessary to maintain a positive professional identity and overcome the personnel impasse. This is what the Teacher for Russia (UDR) program, created in 2015, is aimed at, offering an alternative entry into the school teacher profession for talented university graduates and professionals from different fields. Young professionals after passing intensive summer training for 2 years move to a small town or village, where they teach in one of the local schools. The co-founder of the program, Alena Markovich, says that the program, in particular, seeks to launch a rebranding of the school teacher profession, to ensure not only the nobility, but also the prestige of this occupation, since for many the school teacher profession has an extremely low status. The experience of "teachers for Russia" will be considered in this paper as a unique case of alternative professional socialization of a school teacher. In this paper, we will look at how teachers understand and evaluate their experience of immersion in a new profession, as well as the circumstances and conditions under which young people from large cities decided to move to the countryside, how the adaptation of the program participants developed and how their career track developed in the future. This work is the first serious attempt to make a scientific understanding of the experience of the participants of the Teacher for Russia program, so the study will be more exploratory analysis and aimed at the primary formulation of the problem field around this case. Being interested in such studies of the program, the research department of the project "Teacher for Russia" under the leadership of Svetlana Vetkhova provided information support and provided data for this work.