On August 31, Vitebsk / Olga Bogacheva - BELTA /. 108 thousand students will attend schools in the Vitebsk region in the new academic year, the head of the education department of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, Ivan Shchurok, informed a BELTA correspondent. More than 10,000 children will take their seats in the first grades. "We expect that their number, for the first time in recent years, will exceed last year's level," noted Ivan Shchurok, adding that these exact figures will be known after September 5. Festive assemblies dedicated to Knowledge Day will be held in schools of the Vitebsk region on September 1, and the first ceremonial lesson of the new academic year will be dedicated to the theme "I am a Citizen of Belarus". schoolchildren and students of Vitebsk were able to conduct a kind of preparation for it in the last days of August: this week, the Vitebsk Regional Museum of Local Lore, as part of the republican patriotic campaign with the same name, invited schoolchildren and students to visit the museum's exhibition "Vitebsk Region during the Great Patriotic War" free of charge, which was used by many children. In Glubokoye, the theme of the lesson common to all schoolchildren in Belarus will also be related to the Year of Books, as September 1-2 will mark the Day of Belarusian Written Language here. The teaching staff of schools in the Vitebsk region will be replenished with more than 580 young teachers in the new academic year. They have already been enrolled and assigned to workplaces in both urban and rural schools. In total, about 14.5 thousand teachers will conduct classes in the region in the 2012/2013 academic year. 92% of them have higher education, 78% have the highest and 1st qualification categories, 911 young teachers with secondary vocational education are obtaining higher education through distance learning. To a lesser extent (0.25 - 0.75 full-time equivalent), teachers of retirement age teaching foreign languages and mathematics are also involved in the educational process. Their potential is used in rural schools where there is a shortage of staff. 195 school buses will transport students to schools, 21 of which were purchased this year. The necessary textbooks for lessons have been received. All 534 schools, which will open their doors hospitably on September 1, are ready for the upcoming classes and are waiting for their students. -0-

BELTA