Sberbank, the Ministry of Education of Russia, VEB.RF, and the National Center for Public Private Partnership have held a two-day seminar which addressed the construction of schools relying on PPP principles and co-financed from the federal budget. Over 400 participants from 70 regions of Russia joined in.
Part of the national project Education, the Education Development state program allocates money from the federal budget to create additional seats in local educational institutions through PPPs. The program is set to create over 647,000 new seats in Russia until 2024, which requires RUB 563 bn, of which more than RUB 295 bn are non-government investments. The organizers responsible for the three-stage program are the Russian Education Ministry and VEB.RF, with Sberbank as the key financial partner. Thirty-one concession projects to create schools for 22,000 more students have passed the first stage.
The two-day seminar aimed at further training the officials heading local agencies who are responsible for preparing project entries vying for subsidies from the federal budget. People from the Russian Ministry of Education and VEB.RF gave seminar participants some insights into the rules for granting subsidies, entry requirements, and spoke about the general scheme for allocating budget funds and subsequent control over their spending. Pravo Prosveshcheniya, a law firm consulting on education matters, spoke about choosing the optimal form of implementation.
At the seminar, Sberbank experts spoke about the main ways of initiating such projects, the specific nature of their financing, and covered the key aspects of tailoring a concession agreement. Technical issues were raised by the directorate of School 2025.
While being the program’s financial partner, we also provide expert advice to regions in matters of project preparation and application for federal co-financing. In our opinion, the program is a key instrument in the creation of a modern school infrastructure in Russia. And all market participants should learn to use it as efficiently as possible.
Mikhail Chachin
Vice President, Sberbank
The launched program is innovative. Before it, PPP projects in the social sector were not enjoying such a large-scale state support. According to our estimates, using the concession subsidy, we will need to have created about 800 new schools out of the planned 1,300 by 2024. I would like to note that we are extending the second stage of entry submissions until July 20, which means that Russian regions will have time to fine-tune their applications after the seminar. The process of obtaining a subsidy has many nuances to it. They need to be explained to and discussed with the participants. I think that the seminar will be the first one in a series of education and discussion events that we will conduct in the framework of the program.
Andrey Nikolaev
Deputy Minister of Education of the Russian Federation
Aiding project preparation to follow presidential orders is a vital and priority task for the development corporation. That is why VEB.RF Group’s National Center for Public Private Partnership is educating all Russian regions. We hope that this will help answer all the questions the stakeholders have and increase the number of applications, which we will see during the second and third stage of the selection process.
Nikolay Tsekhomsky
Deputy Chairman, Board Member, VEB.RF
In line with the PPP support program in Russian regions, we interact with government bodies daily and process the project initiatives we receive, often encountering school construction financing projects that seek federal co-financing. The state program clearly enjoys demand, but the lack of knowledge is a major local barrier – how does one make a project ready to qualify for a federal subsidy, how do you document and submit your entry so that it is accepted. We have tried to unveil the key aspects of how this procedure is organized and answer FAQs as part of the education program.
Pavel Seleznev
General Director, National Center for PPP