Important place in the development of national education system and its reforming belongs to pedagogical cadres. In 1997 in pre-school institutions worked 54310 teachers. Almost 98% of them had secondary specialised and higher education. Secondary schools of all types involved more than 144 thousand of teachers of whom 80% obtained higher, 16% - specialised secondary, 3% - incomplete higher and 1% - general secondary education. In 1993 these figures were 79.5, 15.4, 3.0 and 2.1% respectively. Of the total number of secondary school teachers, 11%, 29% and 39.2% belonged respectively to highest, first and secondary category of skill. According to specific gravity of specialists with higher education in secondary schools Belarus outstrips not only its nearest neighbours (Russian Federation, Poland and Lithuania) but many developed countries far abroad. 48.9% of teachers are women.

Basic social, demographic and educational characteristics of pedagogical staff in different levels of education of the Republic of Belarus are presented in text-tables 7-10.

TEXT-TABLE 7

Number of teachers according to sex and age(thousands of persons, 1996/97 academic year)

TEXT-TABLE 8

Educational level of pedagogical staff in pre-school institutions of all ownership

(1994/95 academic year)

Text-table 9

Pedagogical staff’s background in secondary schools of all types (at the beginning of 1998/99 year)

Text-table-10

Qualification category distribution for secondary schools teachers (at the beginning of 1998/99 academic year)

INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION

The basic lines of international co-operation of the Ministry of Education are as follows:

- establishing of all-round ties between bodies of administration, research institutions and education institutions of the Republic and their foreign counterparts: exchange of pupils, students, post-graduate students, teachers and research workers;

- organisation of joint studies and scientific methodological works and implementation of special programs for gifted and clever pupils and students to ensure their social support and protection;

- extension of training and retraining of students and specialists as well as their practical study abroad, primarily in the leading scientific centres of Europe, USA and Japan;

- rapprochement of the national school of Belarus and foreign education systems on the base of mutual recognition and identification of curricula, lists of professions and specialists, diplomas and qualification levels, academic degrees and titles;

- development and implementation of joint projects of rising the world-wide mobility of teachers, research teachers, pupils and students;

- organisation of training educational specialists abroad for the Republic and for foreign countries in our institutions;

- exchange of information on education and upbringing;

- execution of state program "Belorussians in the World" aimed at helping compatriots abroad in the sphere of education.

In 1998 in accordance with the orders of the Council of Ministers different intergovernmental and interdepartmental education agreements with India, China, Vietnam, Egypt, Syria and Romania were signed. Work was continued on co-operation with educational administrative bodies and institutions of Europe, USA and Japan. At present we have near 240 agreements with educational establishments of 16 countries of Europe, America and Asia. The total number of foreign students studying in higher and specialised secondary institutions of the Republic exceeds 3 thousands. There were extensive contacts with 14 regional educational administrative bodies of the Russian Federation and Russia in a whole. Educational establishments of Belarus became more active in establishing educational links with the countries of the former USSR – Latvia, Lithuania, the Ukraine etc. Of great importance were contracts with the Council of Europe especially participation of Belorussian specialists in its committees’ work on higher education and research and international language seminars. The Republic of Belarus is aiming to joint in 1999/2000 the European centre of modern languages. UNESCO General Secretary F. Mayor’s visit to Belarus in 1998 was a power impulse for international co-operation in education development.

Now the Ministry of Education is creating the interdepartmental Committee on Foreign Students. There is a draft of the law "On living outside the Republic of Belarus compatriots" under elaboration. Belarus is going to sign the Lisbon Convention on recognition of higher education qualifications. The strategic goal of this work as well as other steps is more deep involving and more active participation in the international integration processes to occupy the worthy place in world educational area.

New priorities of state educational policy, social, political and economic changes and the real situation in Belarus require justification of existing legislation in accordance with new practice. In 1998 the Ministry of Education initiated elaborating of new draft versus of the following new laws: "On Higher Education", "On Vocational and Technical Education", "On Educational Textbook Publishing Policy and Means of Instruction for Educational Institutions", "On Authorised Representative on the Rights of Children in the Republic of Belarus", "On Modification Processing and Supplements in the law of the Republic of Belarus", "On Education in the Republic of Belarus" etc.

The latter draft presupposes the inclusion in educational legislation of the following new elements:

correction of basic principles of state policy in the area of education;

widening of conditions of ensuring the rights of citizens on education;

declaration of equality of two basic languages of instruction: Belorussian and Russian;

recognition of necessity of working out of the state system of educational standards;

setting up the new educational system structure (family and special education are added);

working out of the multilevel character of higher educational levels and determination of educational documents affirmation and production order;

demarcation of state organs, public associations and educational institutions competence;

setting up common requirements in the organisation of educational process and common order of state control in quality of education;

determination of new order of financing, material and technical maintenance of educational institutions etc.

The most significant correction should be done in legislation on secondary and higher school as well as on occupational education. Ministry of Education together with recently established within President’s administration a special body on legislation and regulation is elaborating a new versus of the Law on Education which will cover all the stages and kinds of study in Belarus. Simultaneously, the drafts of all mentioned above laws are under consideration in the Ministry and in expertise bodies. In particular, the draft of the Law on Higher Education is now under expert evaluation in the Legislative Reform Programme of the Council of Europe. A fruitful idea to create a code of higher school rules before 2005 was recently put foreword. Permanent updating of regulation in the system of education is among the most important aims of the Ministry of Education. Ministries of finance, labour, economics, justice, National Academy of Science, state committees on research, research staff accreditation, standards, National Commission for UNESCO a lot of domestic, international and foreign organisations participate in this process.

Under shortage of time and resources the authors of the report were forced to use limited information that is in reference books by Ministry of Education and Ministry of Statistics and Analyses. It was also used National reports on the System of Education by the National Institute of Education. Some data were obtained from UNESCO Statistic Yearbooks. The list of reference books and different sources of information is situated just at the end of the text. There were found some problems in justification of national statistical data to UNESCO standard due to different basic integrative indicators in these issues. First of all that concerns gender data that appear in media by occasion. Information on some years and positions was not seemed enough accurate to be included in the report but the authors hope to fulfil every empty cell in the nearest future. This information will be soon available through Internet on the web site of the National Institute for Higher Education: http://www.nihe.unibel.by/efa. Because of this in the "paper made" brochure the data on international indicators for 1998 are put only but it made with the most available accuracy.

Almost all the programmes on early childhood development in Belarus are exercised in kindergartens. Private establishments provide short programmes only that are limited mainly with children care. Because of a low amount of them and their poor education level they do not contribute essentially in the value of the Indicator 1.

Because the official statistics includes the relative data of child involving in the educational programmes only Table 1 has empty column 6 but filled column 7. Gender data on pre-school children do not included in the official reference books. So, column 8 remains "white". There is a number of pre-school establishments in the Column 4 instead of enrolment in just pre-school bodies that would be equal to the figures in the Column 3.

By 'Early childhood development programmes' is meant here all organized educational programmes for young children according aged 3 to 5 years old (or to the official age-group in a given country). The data on enrolment should include those in registered primary schools) and those in other similar organized educational institutions/programmes. The data source for the Table 1 was a reference book that was issued by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus in 1998 and corresponds the state on 1 January 1998

It is necessary to stress decrease the number of involved children in the pre-school programmes in early 90-th. It was due to closing a part of kindergartens that are not in state or municipal privacy because of their unprofitability for owners. Even state donation does not save the situation and the price was too high for low-income part of population. One more problem is very low salary of staff.

In fact, now the ability exists to satisfy almost all need in kindergarten. Some enterprises with successful business fulfil their programmes of social assistance for the staff that include kindergarten support to make working conditions more attractive.

The Table 1 data do not include any programmes of family education that are fulfilled by parents. But there are data on the number of pre-school establishments in the Column 4. Dynamics of Gross Enrolment Ration in Belarus during 90^th is reflected by Diagram 5.

Diagram 5 shows shortage of pre-school establishments in rural area where big families traditionally execute home child care. A valley on all the curves displays the worse economic state in Belarus in early 90^th. Nowadays, the situation is much better and the Indicator’s value for urban area became even more than in 1990. Increase of the Indicator in the second part of 90^th is due to more stable economics, special state protection of pre-school system and decrease of birthrate after Chernobyl disaster. Figures of 1999 and 2000 years are the authors’ estimation only. Prediction is based on the smallest difference in last years’ figures.